Take a good look at this star. It’s an orange dwarf called Gliese 710. Seriously, take a really good look at it. Get your glasses if you have to, granny.
Why are you looking so hard at it? Because in about a million years it’s going to run into our solar system. Well, there’s an 86% chance, but in astrology that means it’s pretty much a certainty. Of course by that time with any luck humans will have evolved into hyper-intelligent space travelers and we’re able to find another planet to live on.
Click through for the whole story.
Not quite. The Oort Cloud is a theoretical cloud of icy dust and rock (i.e. comet-like material) which may surround the outside of the solar system. According to old data from ESA experiments and recent models of newer data, Gliese 710 has about an 86 percent chance of passing within 1.1 light years of the Sun, still well outside the “border” of the solar system and out of reach of most estimates of the size of the Oort Cloud. If the star does pass within 1.1 light years of the Sun and the Oort Cloud does exist, models predict an average of 5% increase in impacts system-wide. If Gliese 710 passed close enough it could indeed have an effect on the orbits of Neptune and various Kuiper Belt objects, but likewise if it passed far enough away it could go completely unnoticed.
It should be noted and respected that 86% is strictly 86% and not 100% at all. Not only that, but it’s very possible that the Oort Cloud doesn’t even exist. Also, this will happen ~1.36 million years in the future. We can’t begin to fathom what the circumstances of the human race will be then. We haven’t even been around a million years at this point; we only evolved ~200,000 to 100,000 years ago. I guess my point is that you shouldn’t worry about this. It’s a highly sensational story of little value to the scientifically literate. It should also be understood that astrology is the study of the mythical (i.e. fake) properties of the cosmos. Astronomy is the study of matter. You can tell the difference because astronomy isn’t bullshit.
