From Russia’s RT News
Star on course to meet Solar system identified
Movement of an orange dwarf star with a mass of about half that of the Sun will eventually bring it right to the solar system, stellar data analysis indicates.
The Gliese 710 from the constellation Serpens Cauda is due to arrive in about 1.5 million years, and has an 86 per cent probability of passing through the Oort Cloud, says Vadim Bobylev at the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg.
The prediction is based on analysis of data from the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos astrometric spacecraft, which measured velocities of almost 120,000 stars in the early 1990s, as well as some recent data.
Bobylev analyzed the measured movements of about 35,000 stars in our neighborhood in the time interval from 2 million years in the past to 2 million years in the future. It resulted in adding nine new stars to the list of those which experience close encounters with the Solar system – either in the past or in the future, he reports in a paper published on arXiv.org website. (PDF)
GL 710 was already known to have a scheduled rendezvous with us. However, Bobylev’s analysis indicates a high chance of passing closer than expected. It even has one chance in 1,000 of approaching close enough to significantly affect objects within the Kuiper Belt, i.e. planets, moons and asteroids. This could be bad news for our descendants.
The Oort Cloud is a hypothetical cloud of comets on the solar system’s boundaries, stretching about one light year away from the sun.
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This same news story is also at Discovery News
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1.5 million, eh?
So, will the icecaps have melted between now and then, according to the latest revision of the latest revision of the global warming computer models.
This does tend to make the eventual red-giant phase of the sun less troubling.
It even has one chance in 1,000 of approaching close enough… In 1.5 million years… I’m so scared!
Thank God we have supermodels
What descendants?
If correct (and I expect a high error bar), the median likely closest point is 0.75 LY away. At that distance this dwarf would not even be bright in the night. Big deal. Multiply the odds of this “close” encounter with the odds that the researcher wants to publish a dramatic paper. Reposition star further away accordingly.
You mean we’ll have to put up with this scare story for 1.5 million years?
OT, the South Pacific looks very active at the moment, weather wise. Cyclone is very visible on google earth (select weather > clouds):
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/fiji-copping-it-in-a-big-way/story-e6frg6n6-1225841000320
In the suddenly fashionable English child syle, we ask the paper’s author Bobylev:
“Twinkle Twinkle little prat
How I wonder what you’re at”.
Slightly OT, but how do they know its relative velocity?
Here’s me thinking that the cosmological idea that the universe is universally expanding, means that everything is flying apart from everything else, and the further the faster, according to the measurements of ‘red shift’.
With these observations are they telling us that ‘blue’ shift actually exists? And if so, where does that leave the idea of an expanding universe?
That’s the trouble with our supposed solar system, we’re so far out on a limb that we miss all the action. Meanwhile the people whose stars whizz around on the inside are swapping prophets and planetary paint with each other. Taint fair.
RhudsonL (00:35:25) :
Thank God we have supermodels
So, we can contemplate Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Heidi Klum (or their equivalent in 15. million years) as stars collide?
The nearest star apart from the sun is alpha Centauri at 2.3 light years; the Gliese 710 would be halfway to Centauri, doesn’t seem very close.
OK, OK, but just how are they going to make all this our fault?
Time to get busy moving to another system, maybe Gliese 710 as it will be the closest to us soon.
They made a film about this: “When Worlds Collide”. Not too bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Worlds_Collide_%28film%29
“John R. Walker (01:10:19) :
You mean we’ll have to put up with this scare story for 1.5 million years?”
Yup. Get used to it. It will be called “Global Warping.”
The hard part is going to be figuring out how to blame you for it.
Obviously!!! It’s the Klingons
Is there a consensus that Global Warping is caused by GHGs?
Pachuri’s position under stress
Indian Govt. to fight for Pachuri to be retained as IPCC chief
http://newsx.com/story/74443
OMG! It’s worse than we thought!!!
Orange dwarf. Oompa Loompas! George Monbiot has someone knew to attack!
Maybe by then we can go grab it and harness it’s remaining energy to power Algore’s house?
What a bunch of Gliese 710 deniers.
We’ve passed the tipping point, and It will be catastrophic.
I demand that you all pay enourmous taxes to pay for the global government program that will study the problem, called the Intergovernmental Panel on Gliese Change (IPGC)
Al Gore is my point man, we’ve already got the movie in the works.
No, the hard part will dealing with the people that tell us since this sort of thing happend 3 billion years ago then we should not be concernced.
I’ll bet Vadim Bobylev should make himself useful and try to predict when or if Russian buses and trains will arrive. There’s a real challenge for him. He’s playing it safe as noone will live long enough to disprove his star theory.
I have a theory of my own. I created a computer model that predicts that within the next 100 billion years that the earth will be devoured by the soup dragon (from the clangers). It was a tough decision whether to research CO2 as the greatest threat to mankind or the clangers but I had to be realistic and go with the best evidence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HArUmqqiL0s
Duck and cover!