Researchers at BRI have noticed a number of problems related to the current theory of precession. While VLBI, laser ranging and other related technologies do a good job at determining the earth’s orientation, the sun’s movement through space has not been coordinated with these findings resulting in unintentional bias of precession inputs. In examining the phenomenon of precession of the equinox (which was the original impetus for the development of lunisolar precession theory) we have found that a binary orbit motion of our sun and solar system is a simpler way to reproduce the same observable without any of the problems associated with current precession theory. Indeed, elliptical orbit equations have been found to be a better predictor of precession rates than Newcomb's formula, showing about ten times greater accuracy over the last hundred years. Moreover, a binary orbit motion of our sun provides a solution to a number of solar system formation theory enigmas including angular momentum. For these reasons, BRI has concluded our sun is most likely part of a long cycle binary system.

A binary system is two stars gravitationally bound orbiting a common center of mass. The stars can be of the same or differing sizes and orbits can be as short as a few days or as long as thousands of years. The short ones are easy to detect, the long ones difficult, some probably impossible to detect because of the very long observation period required.



While there is no obvious visible companion star to our Sun, there could be a dark binary, such as a brown dwarf or possibly a relatively small black hole, either of which might be very difficult to detect, without accurate and lengthy analysis.

There is also the possibility that our sun might be in a binary or complex gravitational relationship with one of several nearby “visible” stars. This scenario may require thinking beyond standard Newtonian dynamics to embrace MOND or MOG or some similar theory (that suggests that the constant of G might be stronger between stellar objects or in big space than between planetary objects within the solar system). This approach to viewing stellar relationships in the galaxy, and galactic relationships in the universe, might also solve certain problems that presently require the invocation of dark matter or dark energy. There are a number of possibilities within the visible star scenario that seem to have some support in certain myth and folklore (I have speculated on a few in my book “Lost Star of Myth and Time”) but at this point our work is principally focused on precession, rather than identifying the object that shares the common center of mass, that indirectly causes the solar system’s reorientation to space a.k.a. the precession observable.

Beyond direct detection – one way to determine if we are in a binary system is to see if the Sun is curving through space. To us on Earth that means we should experience a gradual “changing orientation to inertial space.” Such a phenomenon is observed as the precession of the equinox.

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