Why the solar system cannot have two suns: refuting the "conspiracy theory"
Another pseudoscientific "sensation" was published on the social network, this time about the existence of two luminaries. The posters claim that the second Sun is "hiding" behind the first and cite the evidence: a light haze that can sometimes be seen around the star.
In fact, this is the result of atmospheric phenomena known as "solar halos," IFLScience explains. A halo is usually perceived as a bright white ring, although it can sometimes be colored.
A solar halo is an extraordinarily beautiful phenomenon that has inspired conspiracy theorists to theorize about a "pale copy" of the Sun.
Source: Adobe Stock
"It is a ring that forms around the Sun or Moon when light is refracted from ice crystals in a thin veil of cirrus clouds," explains the National Weather Service.
As ridiculous as the conspiracy theory is (it is not clear why anyone would want to hide the existence of a second Sun), there are even more bizarre iterations. In 2016, astronomer Paul Cox was live-streaming Mercury's passage through the Sun when a ball appeared on the screen, probably an optical error.
A halo is formed by the refraction of light in ice crystals.
Source: Adobe Stock
"You may be asking yourself, what is that big round thing to the right of the Sun? That's our second Sun. I don't know if you knew about it. But it is there. It's usually hidden from view. For some reason, NASA and other organizations hide these things from us," Cox said.
It was actually a joke, but it was picked up by conspiracy theorists.
If we had a second Sun, everyone would know about it because of gravity.
The gravity of celestial bodies affects the orbits of nearby bodies. A "copy of the Sun" is not a needle to get lost in the Universe.
Source: Wikipedia
Astronomers have been studying the orbits of planets for hundreds of years. Even minor changes in the orbits help to discover new objects. After all, they affect these orbits through gravity. We simply cannot miss an object with the mass of a star within our solar system.
The Sun rotates every 27 days, which means that we see it in its entirety for a month. A second Sun would have to orbit the real Sun at such a speed that it would never be visible from Earth, and even then, spacecraft sent into the solar system would see it from different vantage points. But they didn't, because it doesn't exist.
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