New threat - Gliese 710

astromaniac (59)in #steemstem • 8 years ago

Earth is exposed to danger much larger than asteroids. The new threat may affect not only our planet, but also the entire Solar System. A stray star rushes towards us. Fortunately, we still have some time.

By William Crochot link Public domain and CC BY-SA 4.0 license for part of image.

Gliese 710 is a red dwarf with a mass of 0.6 solar masses, which is located in the constellation of the Serpent. About 62 light years divide it from Earth. It travels the cosmos at a speed of several kilometers per second. As the calculations show, it will reach the limits of our Solar System for around 1.45 million years. From the human point of view, this is a distant perspective, but it isn't much on the cosmic scale. Probably the star will pass the solar system at a distance of about 77 light-days, that is, a distance of about 13,000 times the size of the Earth and the Sun. At the time of the closest approach to the Earth, Gliese 710 will have a brightness of about -2.7 mag, so it will be one of the brightest stars in our sky and it will move quickly across the sky. The distance in which the star will pass us is enough for the huge gravity of this red dwarf to disturb the orbits of many objects in the Oort Cloud, located at the far reaches of our Solar System.

What will the effects be? According to the latest research, Gliese 710 will fly deeper through the Oort Cloud and perhaps it will throw away 0.1% of the total number of comets that are there. About 10% of them can be close to the Earth. After the passage of the star for some 4 million years in our sky, about 10 new comets may appear each year. Perhaps the risk of cosmic collisions in our Solar System will increase significantly.