Phil Plait writes that the evidence suggests some stars have cruised near our sun at surprisingly close distances, and will do so again:
A few years ago, research using Gaia data indicated that the last such close encounter was about 70,000 years ago, when the star WISE J072003.20-084651.2 — also called Scholz’s Star, after the discoverer — passed just 0.8 light-years from the Sun.
But that was then. Every few years the folks with Gaia release updated data from the mission, with newer numbers. This generally improves the accuracy of the motion measurements, because the longer you look at a star the more it moves and the easier that motion is to see. The third such data release occurred in 2022, and a team of astronomers used it to review the data on Scholz’s Star [link to paper].
Things changed with the revised numbers. They found the encounter occurred more like 80,000 years ago, and the distance was more like 1.08 light-years, with a small uncertainty of just 0.026 light-years.
But there's more:
The astronomers then asked, has there been another star that passed even closer with a high degree of statistical confidence?
The answer is yes! They found that the star UCAC4 237-008148 also once swung past the Sun. In this case it passed us at 0.844 ± 0.02 light years about 1.158 million years ago. Even within the uncertainty that’s closer than Scholz’s Star, breaking the record.
I’ll note that today, UCAC4 237-008148 is about 318 light-years away — a million years is a long time for it to move off — and Scholz’s Star is only 22 light years distant.
The astronomers also looked at a third star, HD 7977, about 246 light-years from us now. They found that about 2.77 million years ago it gave us the incredibly close shave of just 0.49 light-years! That’s definitely violating our personal space.
And if humanity can manage to last another million years, it sounds like it won't be too much of a stretch to hop over to this one:
So those are stars that zipped by us in the past. What about the future? The astronomers in this new work didn’t look into that, but with the new Gaia data I imagine that will be done soon. As of now, using older and less-accurate data from the Hipparcos satellite, the next star to come close is Gliese 710, a red dwarf that will slide past us at a hair-raising 0.163 light-years about 1.3 million years from now. I’d love to see how this might change with the new Gaia data.As Plait writes, the problems of close encounters of these types is the danger of them disturbing the Oort cloud enough to send a lot of comets into the inner solar system.
All very interesting.
3 comments:
Plait is the kind of troglodyte that has spent a lifetime batting down any new knowledge. Consider how he would have reacted to the views of Velikovsky?
And yet here we are. If a new start, with its solar system in tow, gets very close to us, all our orbits are subject to a serious reordering. Which means planets under fire and worlds in collision.
Back in the day I had some dealings with Plait and he's a congenital idiot for sure. Yet that he would recognise something so contrary to his general point of view ........... is quite a good thing.
Smaller objects want to amalgamate and larger objects seek to orbit. The larger objects do not conform to heritage formulae and if they did our orbits would run out of control. What this means is that if a new planet comes into our midsts, it can reorder a great many of our orbits. Because while big planets are loathe to crash, still the presentation of a new gravitational body changes everything and can lead to many terrible chain reactions that may take centuries to find stability again.
So Velikovsky was on the right track.
"A few years ago, research using Gaia data indicated that the last such close encounter was about 70,000 years ago, when the star WISE J072003.20-084651.2 — also called Scholz’s Star, after the discoverer — passed just 0.8 light-years from the Sun."
When a star comes close to us, it brings with it an entire solar system. Which will include outlying moons and planets. These moons and planets will start interfering with our solar system and create horrifying electrical effects leading to earthquakes, super volcanoes and all manner of other arch-nasties.
IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THEN that this time period is linked with homo-sapiens having a population bottleneck. Plait is an idiot who has attempted to argue that space is electrically neutral. Plait is full of shit. Yet here he acknowledges new knowledge with reinforces what his adversaries have known all along.
"Around 70,000 years ago, humanity's global population dropped down to only a few thousand individuals, and it had major effects on our species.
One theory claims that a massive supervolcano in Indonesia erupted, blackening the sky with ash, plunging earth into an ice age, and killing off all but the hardiest humans."
Not a coincidence at all. So we are looking at an outer planet of this star, coming too close and creating all manner of electrical effects.
If we could only realise that this sort of thing happens periodically and start preparing for this, then we would realise that we cannot tolerate finance parasites any more. And we can't tolerate this bullshit that we are overpopulated even though its kind of true. But we need all hands on deck to prepare in any case.
Our numbers will be thinned out soon enough. We don't need to worry about having too many people. But we have plenty of work for people to do terraforming the planet so more than just a few thousand survive this time.
Are we really tapped out on canals? I don't THINKso. Are we tapped out on flat flat rail? No. Nor on ponds, swales, dams, and artificial reefs for fish production.
Plus military preparations should include a lot more freeze-dried food. So we have several years of this to get us past any kind of natural disaster that blocks out the sun. Or to get us past any kind of military blockade.
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