Claims of A Planetary System
In 1855, Capt. W. S. Jacob of the Madras Observatory of the East India Company claimed that the orbit of the binary showed an anomaly, and it was "highly probable" that there was a "planetary body in connection with this system". T. J. J. See made a stronger claim for the existence of a dark companion in this system in 1899, but Forest Ray Moulton soon published a paper proving that a three-body system with the specified orbital parameters would be highly unstable. The claims by Jacob and See have both been shown to be erroneous. Jacob's claim was probably one of the first for an exoplanet based on astrometric evidence.
A claim of a planetary system was again made by Dirk Reuyl and Erik Holberg in 1943. The companion was estimated to have a mass one tenth the mass of the Sun. This caused quite a sensation at the time but later observations have gradually discredited this claim.
Read more about this topic: 70 Ophiuchi
Famous quotes containing the words claims of, claims, planetary and/or system:
“All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)
“We cannot cheat on DNA. We cannot get round photosynthesis. We cannot say I am not going to give a damn about phytoplankton. All these tiny mechanisms provide the preconditions of our planetary life. To say we do not care is to say in the most literal sense that “we choose death.””
—Barbara Ward (1914–1981)
“The moral immune system of this country has been weakened and attacked, and the AIDS virus is the perfect metaphor for it. The malignant neglect of the last twelve years has led to breakdown of our country’s immune system, environmentally, culturally, politically, spiritually and physically.”
—Barbra Streisand (b. 1942)