Walter Cruttenden and the Binary Research Institute
Walter Cruttenden describes himself as an amateur archaeo-astronomer. After a successful career in finance, he has dedicated himself to promoting and refining the binary star theory of precession. In 2001, he founded the Binary Research Institute (BRI). He has written a book on the subject called Lost Star of Myth and Time and made a documentary film called The Great Year. The BRI also holds an annual Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge (CPAK).
Rate of Change of Precession
If lunar and solar gravity were solely responsible for precession, we would expect the rate of precession to be as constant as their influences. Precession has actually been measured as accelerating by an average of about 0.00035 arc seconds per year since 1900. This means precession appears to be accelerating and decelerating in the same way that it would if the explanation for precession was that the sun were moving in an elliptical orbit typical of binary star systems. This acceleration suggests that the sun has moved past the most distant point in its orbit and is currently accelerating inward toward its companion. The data suggests an elliptical orbit of about 24,000 years in duration, with the sun having passed the most distant point about 1,500 years ago. This is shorter than the current scientific estimate of precession at 25,771 years, because of the acceleration that occurs when the two stars are closest to each other. The standard lunisolar model assumes a steady and unchanging rate of motion. Conventional science attributes this apparent acceleration solely to improvements in the accuracy of the measurement of precession over the last hundred years.
Astronomers at the University of Michigan and the University of Arizona have recently discovered that the Kuiper Belt has a very pronounced sheer edge. In a single-sun system this would be very unlikely to happen. It is, however, consistent with the existence of a binary companion, which would tend to sweep objects from the extreme edges of the solar system as it passes.
Distribution of Angular Motion
In the conventional model, angular momentum in the solar system is inexplicably distributed in a completely uneven way between the planets and the sun. The sun has 99.9 percent of the solar system's mass but only 1 percent of the total angular momentum. This can be accounted for by assuming that the sun's angular momentum is not embodied in the axial spin but in a proposed 24,000-year orbit around its binary twin. The angular momentum-to-mass ratio of all planets and the sun is then consistently distributed.
The Eccentric Orbits of the Newly Discovered Dwarf Planets
The influence of a binary star would likely create exactly the kind of eccentric orbits found with the newly discovered dwarf planets, Eris and Sedna. “It is logical to assume (the orbit of) Sedna is telling us something about current, albeit unexpected solar system forces, most probably a companion star,” Cruttenden concludes. He also points out that Sedna's orbit period of 12,000 years is in neat resonance with the hypothetical solar orbit around our companion star suggested by the BRI, being exactly half its length.
The BRI has calculated that a brown dwarf with a mass 8 percent that of the sun, at a distance of about 800–1,000 astronomical units (the distance from Earth to the sun), would result in a 24,000-year orbit for the sun around the gravitational center of the binary system. A larger companion star further out could produce the same orbital cycle.
