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
That day in 1,500,000 years when Gliese 710 comes by wouldn’t happen to fall on a weekend would it. I hate when weekends get interrupted.
I can almost imagine a science fiction story where everyone agrees to a plan of universal sterilization and gentile suicide as the ‘Death Star’ approaches to disrupt the solar system and then in the last moment it is knocked off course by an unseen errant black hole.
The life expectancy of the planet and humans on earth is finite, we all know that, we just do not know how the end will come, or when.
One of the arguments for the space program back in the day was to ensure the survival of the human race when the inevitable happens.
They say we would need 20-30 years just to get back to the moon. I am not optimistic, but then I won’t be around, so good luck to those down the road. Maybe humans will evolve into something worth saving and be smarter than the current model, if not, good riddance.
Meanwhile the war on mans CO2 continues.
I think well get to it before it gets to us. 1.5 million years is nothing. I already know people working on interstellar spaceships that could get there.
I’m sure someone with an astronomy degree will get him self up loaded before then and will be sitting around waiting for the show 1.5 million years later.
Pascvaks (18:50:25) :
I hope that by the time all this transpires that they (whoever ‘they’ are) are finally able to use this event to:
b. Terraform Venus and put Pluto in orbit as it’s moon
If I only had more time I could think of a thousand things for them (whoever ‘them’ is) to do.
Actually ‘they/them’ includes me. I’m already writing about colonising and terraforming Venus. In that order. Its not that far off technologically.
See http://appliedimpossibilies.blogspot.com/2010/01/venusian-dreams.html
We could live in airships in the upper atmosphere, above the acid clouds but feeding on them and controling robot miners on the surface. Then you start terraforming with aerostatic plants. I would expect the first Venus Colony to be about 2070 or so.
PS a preview button would help on these posts Anthony.
Pascvaks (18:50:25) :
I hope that by the time all this transpires that they (whoever ‘they’ are) are finally able to use this event to:
b. Terraform Venus and put Pluto in orbit as it’s moon
If I only had more time I could think of a thousand things for them (whoever ‘them’ is) to do.
Actually ‘they/them’ includes me. I’m already writing about colonising and terraforming Venus. In that order. Its not that far off technologically.
See http://appliedimpossibilies.blogspot.com/2010/01/venusian-dreams.html
We could live in airships in the upper atmosphere, above the acid clouds but feeding on them and controling robot miners on the surface. Then you start terraforming with aerostatic plants. I would expect the first Venus Colony to be about 2070 or so.
PS a preview button would help on these posts Anthony.
See what I mean? Can’t fix the double post. or can I have I missed something?
RE: Wikipedia Article “Extrasolar planet”
“… By contrast, most known exoplanets with longer orbital periods have quite eccentric orbits. This is not an observational selection effect, since a planet can be detected about equally well regardless of the eccentricity of its orbit.”
I would think that the most plausible explanation for such eccentric orbits is a close encounter with another star. I think we have been lucky that our solar system has not yet had any such encounter and is not likely to have one for a very long time.
Well there goes th’ neighborhood…..;-)
“Clayton Hollowell (18:27:42) :
If in 1.5 million years, we can’t deal with a barrage (geologically speaking) of comets, we deserve what we get.”
True dat.
The forecast for the period of present to 1.5 million years is a continued Quaternary Ice Age with alternating glacial and inter-glacial periods in additional glacial stages. The present ice age is forecast to end not earlier than some few tens of millionsof years, unless another heavy bombardment occurs.
The Sun’ luminosity may be expected to increase by about 10% during the next 1100 million years. By then the Earth’s hydrosphere will be transformed into water vapor. As the Sun loses mass the planets will migrate to new orbits farther away from the Sun, except for Mercury which is vaporized and consumed by the Sun. The Earth’s new orbits will move outwards to the vicinity of where Mars is today.
The ghost of Big Jim Cooley (00:42:57) :
“What descendants?”
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I suspect cockroaches will still be around.
Flash! I love you, but we only have one and a half million years to save the Earth!
I wonder if we’ll hitch a ride before the sun goes red giant?
Hitchhiker’s guide to the stars?
Maybe it’ll keep the vogons from destroying us.
Forget about Gliese 710, an ever greater worry is Dark Flow which will Sweep away our neighbouring galaxies along with the Milky Way.