For quite a while we ’ve sleep with that another star isheading our agency , and now stargazer have not only substantiate that prediction , but said it ’ll be close and sooner ( a act ) than we thought .
The champion is call Gliese 710 , which is about 60 percentage the mass of our Sun . It ’s a dwarf star that , in a spot over a million years , will come within a fifth of a light - yr of our Solar System .
At that distance , it is some drive for concern , as it will be well within theOort swarm – a immense swarm of comet that surrounds our Sun up to a light - year away . It ’s possible it could send some of these comets flying inwards towards the planet , or even disturb the planet with its gravitative pull .
Thanks to the first hatful of data from the European Space Agency’sGaia space lookout station , astronomers Filip Berski and Piotr Dybczyński were able torefine this predictionin 2016 . They allege it would make its close plan of attack in 1.35 million year , at a distance of 0.25 light - yr , or 16,000 times the Earth - Sun distance .
But now that the second batch of data is out , two astronomers have refined this even further . In a little paper publish onarXiv , stargazer Raul de la Fuente Marcos and Carlos de la Fuente Marcos from the University of Madrid say the star is choke to get closer and preferably .
Their calculations paint a picture it will brush the Solar System in about 1.29 million years , at a space of just 0.07 light - years . That ’s just over 4,000 prison term further than Earth is from the Sun , and just 100 fourth dimension further than the field of Pluto .
“ Our final result … propose a skinny , both in terms of length and time , flyby of Gliese 710 to the solar system , ” the investigator wrote in their paper . While they say that the asterisk is unlikely to have a gravitative outcome on the major planet , the tight approach “ may actuate a major comet shower bath that will involve the internal solar system . ”
Interestingly , the team get along up with a model for calculate the confining approach by looking at another that happenednot too long ago . About 70,000 years ago , it ’s thought that a reddened gnome star come within a clear - year of our Solar System , possibly visible to ancient . Called Scholz ’s Star , it helped them refine their calculation for Gliese 710 .
At the second , the star is 62 short - years from us , so it ’s certainly not having any result at the moment . But it looks like in the remote future our descendants may well have to contend with this closelipped passage . get ’s hope they ’ve got the means to survive anything it throws at them .
