Posted on 09/07/2017 10:57:21 AM PDT by BenLurkin
To our Solar System, “close-encounters” with other stars happen regularly – the last occurring some 70,000 years ago and the next likely to take place 240,000 to 470,000 years from now. While this might sound like a “few and far between” kind of thing, it is quite regular in cosmological terms. Understanding when these encounters will happen is also important since they are known to cause disturbances in the Oort Cloud, sending comets towards Earth.
Thanks to a new study by Coryne Bailer-Jones, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, astronomers now have refined estimates on when the next close-encounters will be happening. After consulting data from the ESA’s Gaia spacecraft, he concluded that over the course of the next 5 million years, that the Solar System can expect 16 close encounters, and one particularly close one!
For the sake of the study – which recently appeared in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics under the title “The Completeness-Corrected Rate of Stellar Encounters with the Sun From the First Gaia Data Release” – Dr. Bailer Jones used Gaia data to track the movements of more than 300,000 stars in our galaxy to see if they would ever pass close enough to the Solar System to cause a disturbance.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
A Star Passed Through the Solar System Just 70,000 Years Ago
Article written: 18 Feb , 2015
Updated: 23 Dec , 2015
by Tim Reyes
https://www.universetoday.com/119038/a-star-passed-through-the-solar-system-just-70000-years-ago/
Need to prepare for the cosmic bombardment when a star ejects comets ands like from the Ort Cloud towards the solar system.
I sense a disturbance in the Oort Cloud..........As if a Billion dirty snowballs were suddenly thrown into the sun.....................
The title needs some work or it'll never sell. "Planetarium Orgy" - now, people are gonna buy that.
There’s some hollywood stars I’d like to see pass through the oort cloud.
We must prepare for Oort Cloud Change!
Send us your money now while there’s still time!.................
“Planetarium Orgy”
Lots and lots of “actresses” wearing coke bottle glasses.
More correctly, wouldn't that be, "...sending comets towards the sun"?
Of course, the earth could get in their way....
I don’t know how, but I’m certain this is caused by climate change...
Just to be clear, isn’t this “Oort Cloud” a theoretical model to explain the existence of comets AND a multi-billion year old Solar System?
Article says Oort Cloud is at risk when stars come within 60 trillion km. It neglects to mention alpha, beta and Proxima Centauri are now ~ 40 trillion km away. Three strikes and chicken little is on the loose.
That was the premise behind “Lucifer’s Hammer” by Niven and Pournelle.
A very fine example of SHTF fiction!
The Toba Super-volcano erupted about 70,000 years ago.
For every visible star there are likely many dwarf star too cold to shine, the brown dwarf like an overgrown Jupiter.
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