At its closest point, Scholz's star would have been a 10th-magnitude star
— 50 times too faint to be seen with the naked eye. However, brief flares
on the star could have lit it up thousands of times brighter, making it
potentially visible to early mankind for a few minutes or hours at a time,
the researchers explained.
- Moon-Watcher From 'Space Odyssey'
- 53920.jpg (85.66 KiB) Viewed 1261 times
the star HIP 85605, predicted to graze the solar system in 240,000 to
470,000 years. However, Mamajek and his team demonstrated that the original
distance to the star was underestimated by a factor of 10. At its more likely
distance of about 200 light-years, the newly calculated path would not bring
it within the Oort cloud, they said. With its goal of charting a three-
dimensional map of the galaxy, the recently launched European Space Agency's
Gaia satellite will go a long way toward helping astronomers identify which
other clouds might have had a close encounter with the solar system, or will
be dropping by in the near future. "Other dynamically important Oort-cloud
perturbers may be lurking among the stars," Mamajek said.
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