Nemesis and 2012

What is Nemesis? How does it relate to us directly/indirectly. Because of the 2012 hoo-ha, my group of friends have speculated that Nemesis is Nibiru... and basically trying to fit it in with current doomsday predictions. I would very much appreciate some light shed on this subject. Thank You.

I never cease to be amazed at the way many people seem to want Nibiru to exist in spite of the fact that that it has long been exposed as a hoax. Anyone who applies a little logic will know that Nibiru is fictional. The situation with Nemesis is more complex, since this supposed stellar companion of the Sun was suggested by scientists about 25 years ago to help explain the apparent periodicity of mass extinctions, which seemed to peak every 25-30 million years or so. Note that Nemesis was supposed to be a faint star with a an orbital period of about 30 million years, while Nibiru is supposed to be a planet with a period of 3600 years -- they could hardly be more different. In any case, scientists today no longer think an object like Nemesis could exist. If it were real it would have been detected long ago in infrared sky surveys. Thus about all Nibiru and Nemesis have in common is that both begin with the letter N, have three syllables, and do not exist. (For more information, you can look up both in Wikipedia).

David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist
April 9, 2010