Freaky Stuff

[Size_Mick]

Okay, so I'm not the most literate in the ways of astronomy, not by a longshot. So I'm trying to find info on star classes because I was checking out extrasolar planets in Celestia, and wanted to know if any stars like ours had been discovered to have planets orbiting them. I'd been looking at G2V types but I didn't really know whether this meant that the star was really like ours, which is why I wanted the lowdown on star classification in the first place.

Well, in Celestia, the nearest G2V star to us with a planet is RHO CrB. Anyhow, when looking up info on star classes, I stumbled upon this interesting tidbit:

http://www.gravitywarpdrive.com/Zeta_Reticuli_Incident.htm

So they're going on about Zeta 1 Reticuli and Zeta 2 Reticuli. Freaky, I thought. So I look for Zeta 1 Reticuli in Celestia (Goto object), and I can't find it. It must have a different name or something, I figured. So I do a Google search for Zeta 1 Reticuli and find out it's abbreviated to Zeta1 Ret, and Zeta 2 Reticuli is abbreviated to Zeta2 Ret, which Celestia displays with no problem. But there is one thing that starts to puzzle me. According to the article in which I found this information, astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting Zeta 2 Reticuli, which of course is the focus of the whole story in the first link I mentioned. Yet, in Celestia, there is no planet orbiting Zeta 2 Reticuli.

http://www.mufor.org/zeta2ret.html

So really, what I want to know is, where can I find a list of all stars known to have planets, is Zeta 2 Reticuli in that list, and if so, why doesn't Celestia have a planet around it? Don't think I'm some sort of X-Files nut or something (I actually can't stand that show in case you're not interested). I just want to know if Zeta2 Ret has ever been thought to have a planet, and if so, why does it apparently not have one now? Thanks in advance for the effort :)

UPDATE: Apparently I can't read. So they say that a planet has been discovered, stick it in the catalog, then remove it 4 days later. Has this happened before or since? Or is this a unique case?

"In a rather strange 'about face', the above information was removed from the Extra Solar Planets Encyclopedia site after 4 days .. the official reason was that 'the data may have been misinterpreted and there probably is no planet.'"

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I found the Extra Solar Planets Encyclopedia site and found no mention of Zeta 2 Reticuli, even in back literature from 1996. No explanation as to who claimed it had a planet, why it had been removed, nothing. So does anyone know about this? I'm having a lot of difficulty finding any websites that mention Zeta 2 Reticuli that aren't UFO government coverup conspiracy sites. Is there anything published by your typical reputable astronomer about Zeta2 Ret having/ not having a planet?

http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/encycl.html

[Stargazer_2098]

I have created a discussion thread about this in the Anomalies.net forum. Go to http://www.anomalies.net/cgi-bin/bbs//u ... 5&t=003399

I really don't belive in this story myself, but it is interesting, especially about that Starmap.


Stargazer.

[Size_Mick]

Well, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli both are in current version of Celestia, I've looked at them (goto object ZET1 Ret or ZET2 Ret). I don't believe in UFOs myself, I'm just curious as to why ZET2 Ret was added to the list of stars with planets, then yanked off the list 4 days later, and the only info I can find about it is on UFO conspiracy sites. Isn't there something about the incident in mainstream astronomical journals, or even regular news clippings? Why is it that a Google search for Zeta 2 Reticuli only gives me links to UFO/sci-fi/religious/wacko sites? If it was never an occurance in the astronomical community, why was it apparently added to the list and then removed? Who submitted the data? Incidentally, according to one website I viewed, Zeta 2 Reticuli is the star that planet LV420 was circling in the "Alien" movies, heheh. Love those little fellas.

AGAIN WITH THE UPDATES: I found this:

http://www.solstation.com/stars2/zeta-ret.htm

Which tells me it was a discovery by astronomers at European Southern Observatory. Great, I thought. I'll just head on over to their site and see what I can dig up. I got Zilch. It's like it never happened. The URL above has a link to another URL that gives a half-hearted "explanation" as to why the discovered planet was withdrawn a few days later. This is really starting to irritate the hell out of me.

[Stargazer_2098]

You may want to search for Zeta Reticuli at http://www.nasa.gov , their search-engine explains only scientific sites, no wacko-stuff or something like that.

I suggest you try to search for it there.


UPDATE: I have tried to search for it at nasa, but it turned out nada, zit, zero, nothing.


Stargazer.

[Size_Mick]

Well, nasa.gov has nothing. Here's a link to all of ESO's press releases for 1996 and not one of them mentions anything about discovering a planet. You think they were embarassed or something?

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-1996/

[Stargazer_2098]

I do agree this is a little strange. If it was a planet discovered in that system, NASA would have it in their records.

Most probably, the discovery of the planet was just a mistake after all.
If it was a mistake, there is no wonder it has been removed from the records...


Stargazer.

[Size_Mick]

I'm not bothered by the fact that there isn't a record of a planet orbiting ZET2 Reticuli. What I'm bothered by is that there seems to be no record of one even thought to have been discovered, except on UFO nut sites. It's like the whole thing was covered up, or didnt' create any excitement (which I sort of doubt), and didn't receive any press coverage whatsoever. I'd just like to see a record somewhere, on a "real", official astronomy site, that says "Yeah they thought they had this, but they were wrong and it turned out they were wrong because of so-and-so." But that doesn't exist, even in the archives of the very organization whose anonymous astronomers supposedly discovered it. Except for the UFO nut sites reporting that it happened, IT NEVER HAPPENED. Doesn't that seem odd? I can point to other astronomical blunders, like the fact that it was once thought that Venus' atmosphere is mostly formaldehyde. That's embarrasing, but no one has tried to erase that it was ever conceived.

[abiogenesis]

There is one possible explanation. Perhaps it never happened! If the only record you can find of the event is on UFO fanatic sites, then it is quite possible that the entire event was a rumor spawned by those self-same fanatics. Maybe there never was a planet discovered -- not even erroneously.

Personally, I don't know. I just know that I wouldn't go to any of the sites that mention the discovery, and subsequent coverup, of the planet looking for "news".

Just doing my part to help the government keep things under wraps. "What you saw was the light of Venus refracted in a pocket of gas in the upper atmosphere."

-abiogenesis-

[Hank R]

My guess would be that the 1996 report of the discovery of a planet at Zeta 2 Ret was premature, based on data showing a periodic variation in radial velocity which was subsequently interpreted as stellar pulsation rather than a substellar companion. A planet discovery was not formally announced, so there was no need for a retraction.

The earlier studies involving a companion at Zeta 2 concerned a possible stellar companion, not a planet.

Even if a planet were discovered at Zeta 2, BTW, it could hardly be taken seriously as evidence supporting the claims of the UFO nuts...

- Hank

[Sum0]

Why not just email a astronomy site/post on something? This sounds like a job for the Bad Astronomer... http://www.badastronomy.com
Personally, I don't think this really has any substance... If it's been pounced upon by UFO nuts, it's probably nothing to do with anything. And the lack of information about it makes more sense than a flood of info - why would anyone want to know about a non-existant planet? No, I'm not working for the government...

[Rassilon]

Well I can stake my life on the idea that we are not alone in the universe...Its insane to think we are the only life...or more human arrogance...but remember theres alot of bs out there so be careful what you take as fact...

I personally think that the government knows alot more than they are telling us...eg. the discovered 'ruins' on Mars, discovered in ~1990 were just recently submitted as new discoveries...

If our planet came in contact with aliens...do you really think that we would be ready for that on a whole?...Goes back to some of the ideas presented in that hated tv show X-Files...not by me though...not the old ones anyways

like the fact that it was once thought that Venus' atmosphere is mostly formaldehyde. That's embarrasing, but no one has tried to erase that it was ever conceived.

Why embarrasing? In our vast universe there could be planets with such atmospheres...Hell at one time people thought the moon was made of cheese...now thats embarrasing

[alexis]

In a paper by Santos, Israelian and Mayor (Swiss planet hunters) from 2001, they explicitly refer to zeta2 Reticuli (=HD 20807) as a star without known planets. The reference is Santos, Israelian & Mayor 2001 A&A, 373, 1019, find a preprint at the arXiv.

/Alexis

[Size_Mick]

All I can conclude at this point is one of the following:

A) It really never happened, the Extra Solar Planets Encyclopedia never had data like that in their catalogue, and the whole thing was made up by X-Files fans or what have you.

B) It really did happen, and the unnamed astronomers were so overly excited by the discovery that the very first people they decided to contact were the folks over at the Extra Solar Planet Encyclopedia. Apparently the ESPE carries a lot of prestige or something, more so than the rest of the astronomical community's press, major news publishers, possibly even the National Enquirer -- no, I'm sure the National Enquirer would have been the first people they would have contacted.


C) One of those people who run the ESPE was a friend of one of the anonymous astronomers, and a real X-Files fanatic. They had a friendly get together one night over wine and cheese, and the astronomer mentioned casually in passing that they thought they had discovered a planet around ZET2 Ret. The guy from ESPE got all worked up, ran back to the office, and published the data. Four days later, he got an angry phone call from the unnamed astronomer in which he said something to the effect of, "No, you fool! I was just trying to get you to sleep with me! Retract that data IMMEDIATELY!" because this sort of thing could prove to be a source of real embarassment for an otherwise reputable and supposedly heterosexual astronomer.

D) At this point in the day I don't even care anymore, and this thread is completely burned out.

One last thing though, I am skeptical about the credibility of the premise of that paper about the metallicity of stars with planets, as our own sun quite obviously has a few gas giants circling it, but is also almost completely lacking in metals.

[alexis]

One last thing though, I am skeptical about the credibility of the premise of that paper about the metallicity of stars with planets, as our own sun quite obviously has a few gas giants circling it, but is also almost completely lacking in metals.

In comparison to other stars in our solar neighbourhood, the Sun is not very metal poor (nor very metal rich). The [Fe/H] index is -0.15, most stars range from -4 (very metal poor) to 2 (metal rich). The Santos et al. paper merely says that stars with planets have an expected metallicity which is higher than for stars without planets. That's plainly a result from their research, and unless you see any problems with their methods, I feel no reason to doubt them.

/Alexis

[Vicware]

ZET2 Reticuli... wasn't that the name of the system that the crew of
the Nostromo ended up at in the original "Alien?"

Maybe you're all getting your leg pulled.

Vic

[Size_Mick]

Vicware - I did know that, it's mentioned in my 2nd post. I love the Aliens movies (well, except for the 3rd one). They kick butt.