A telescope that might be able to resolve the question of our potential companion star is scheduled for launch by NASA in November 2009. The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is by far the most powerful midinfrared telescope ever assembled, with far greater sensitivity than any previous mission or program. WISE is scheduled to survey the entire sky, looking for nearby stars that are cooler and dimmer than the sun. According to NASA, “WISE will find many such Brown Dwarf stars in the solar neighborhood, most of which have yet to be discovered. Some may even be closer to the Sun than any other star previously known.”

In the next few years, advances in the capabilities of telescopes like WISE mean that if there is a companion star to the sun and it is a red or brown dwarf, we may well discover its location, possibly by 2012. We will then likely know if it really is the hypothetical death star, responsible for the apparent cycle of mass extinctions that seem to occur every 26 million years on Earth. If we do not find it, it may mean that there is still a companion to the sun to be found, but that it is either a black dwarf or a supergiant planetoid, both of which would be much more difficult to detect.

Most importantly, the perturber of the Oort cloud, whatever it turns out to be, shows that a Planet X or Nemesis doesn't have to charge into the inner planets of the solar system to potentially cause catastrophic change to our planet. It may be that the death star has already influenced the course of life on Earth by periodically sending comet showers toward our planet. Urgent further study is required to find out if this really is the case and, if it is, when the next inundation is due.