(PxHere https://bit.ly/3zTibhT)
A team of astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy identified 42 stars that have been approaching the Sun within a parsec over the past or future six million years.
The researchers led by Coryn Bailer-Jones used observational data from the Gaia space telescope.
Approaches of stars can influence the evolution of their stellar or planetary systems.
Early in a star's life, such encounters can destroy circumstellar disks, affecting the further formation of planets.
Also, at later stages, they can change the orbits of external bodies such as comets, directing them towards the star or throwing them away from the system.
If the planetary system comes close to a star that is preparing to turn into a supernova, then this may threaten the habitability of that system.
THE STARS
Now, Bailer-Jones’s team decided to determine which stars could or could approach the Sun within a period of ± 6 million years from now at a distance of one parsec (3.26 light years).
They analyzed data from the Gaia DR3 catalog, containing information on the position and motion parameters of 33,653,049 stars in the Milky Way, collected by the Gaia space telescope.
The scientist identified 61 stars that formally approach the Sun within one parsec, but only 42 of them have a high probability of making (or have already made) such an approach.
(C. A. L. Bailer-Jones / arXiv, 2022 https://bit.ly/3w5WEkR)
The team singled out two of the closest rendezvous events.
The first one is the star Gl 710, which is a K7 dwarf with a mass of 0.7 solar masses and it will make the closest approach to the Sun in 1.3 million years.
Gl 710 is at a distance of 0.194–0.221 light years, about 25 times closer to Proxima Centauri.
The second one is the spectral-type dwarf G3 HD 7977, now at a distance of 247.8 light years, which flew past it at a minimum distance of 0.163 light years 2.8 million years ago.
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