A star known as Gliese 710 is headed for a close encounter with our star Sol.

Gliese 710 is a star in the constellation Serpens Cauda which is expected to pass through our Solar System’s Oort cloud 1.35 million years from now. Its distance at closest approach is expected to be about 13000 astronomical units, or a mere 77 light days (430 times the orbit of Neptune),[note 4]. For comparison, Proxima Centauri is more than 1500 light days away.


The movements of more than 300 000 stars surveyed by ESA’s Gaia satellite reveal that rare close encounters with our Sun might disturb the cloud of comets at the far reaches of our Solar System, sending some towards Earth in the distant future.
As the Solar System moves through the Galaxy, and as other stars move on their own paths, close encounters are inevitable – though ‘close’ still means many trillions of kilometres.

The unassuming star centered in this sky view will one day be our next door stellar neighbor.

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Credit: Digitized Sky Survey, SkyView
A star, depending on its mass and speed, would need to get within about 60 trillion kilometres before it starts to have an effect on the Solar System’s distant reservoir of comets, the Oort Cloud, which is thought to extend out to 15 trillion kilometres from the Sun, 100 000 times the Sun–Earth distance.

An artist’s rendering of the Oort cloud and the Kuiper belt

Credit: NASA
For comparison, the outermost planet Neptune orbits at an average distance of about 4.5 billion kilometres, or 30 Sun–Earth distances.

The gravitational influence of stars that pass near the Oort Cloud could perturb the paths of comets residing there, jolting them onto orbits that bring them in to the inner Solar System.

While this is thought to be responsible for some of the comets that appear in our skies every hundred to thousand years, it also has the potential to put comets on a collision course with Earth or other planet

Tracking stellar motions

A view of a small part of the sky as if you were staring at a star (centre) approaching nearly head on, and then as it passes by and away again.

The motion can be likened to what an observer standing beside a road would see looking at an approaching car, and then swinging around to continue to follow it as it moves away. As a result, the objects in the background – in this case distant stars – become blurred as you move quickly to maintain a visual on the passing object.

The focus of this animation is the star known as Gliese 710. It will have a close encounter with our Sun in 1.3 million years, passing within the Oort Cloud reservoir of comets in the outskirts of our Solar System. The star is predicted to pass within about 2.3 trillion kilometres, the equivalent of about 16 000 Earth–Sun distances. The star’s motion is set against a background of other moving stars and the visualisation covers, very quickly, the timeframe from about 1.1–1.5 million years in the future.
Credit: Copyright ESA/Gaia/DPAC

The size of the field of view is 10 x 5º (for comparison: the Moon spans 0.5º on the sky) and the colours represent the astronomical colours of the stars as derived from the Gaia data. Gliese 710 is an orange K-type dwarf star, an ordinary star similar to the Sun but less hot and less massive..

Understanding the past and future motions of stars is a key goal of Gaia as it collects precise data on stellar positions and motions over its five-year mission. After 14 months, the first catalogue of more than a billion stars was recently released, which included the distances and the motions across the sky for more than two million stars.

By combining the new results with existing information, astronomers began a detailed, large-scale search for stars passing close to our Sun.

So far, the motions relative to the Sun of more than 300 000 stars have been traced through the Galaxy and their closest approach determined for up to five million years in the past and future.

Of them, 97 stars were found that will pass within 150 trillion kilometres, while 16 come within about 60 trillion km.

While the 16 are considered reasonably near, a particularly close encounter of one star, Gliese 710, in 1.3 million years’ time, stands out. It is predicted to pass within just 2.3 trillion km or about 16 000 Earth–Sun distances, well within the Oort Cloud.

The star is already well-documented, and thanks to the Gaia data, the estimated encounter distance has recently been revised. Previously, there was a 90% degree of certainty that it would come within 3.1–13.6 trillion kilometres. Now, the more accurate data suggest that it will come within 1.5–3.2 trillion km, with 2.3 trillion km most likely.

Another interesting topic MM you are on a roll.

There are a few things to consider...

1.35 million years from now:

In a million years the human base form was a million years old.
Civilization can only be traced back to around 50-75,000 years for the most part.
In a million years, if humans are still the dominate lifeform on this planet we may have the technology to get out of the way or alter the course of approaching objects.

Bow Shock Boundaries:

It is well known that Sol has a bow shock. It is a separation of interstellar and outer space. Created by the Solar winds of our star. It can be expected that Gliese 710, a star, may also have a bow shock. Since Voyager has not yet reached the bow shock of Sol we don't know if it is a barrier or a diminishing effect. The Bow Shock could act like a balloon around a BB. If that is the case, the two bow shocks may interact and cause Gliese 710 to bounce off. Which is equally as significant because if you hit a balloon with another balloon, both will move.

Relative Velocity:

Gliese 710 is determined to be of less mass and less temperature as Sol. Less mass is good but only if the velocity is negligible.
If you fire a bullet at a watermelon the bullet will penetrate the watermelon even tho it has less mass.

Angle of Impact:

The angle at which Gliese 710 encounters the Sol system will determine its effect on the system. Passing thru the Oort Cloud can be insignificant or very significant.

Lets explore what could occur:

Forward fast 1.35 million years. Gliese 710 is just getting to the bow shock. The stellar mass is less that Sol but Sol is far away and the gravity of its mass has less impact on objects at the outer reaches. Gliese 710 is a star and has stellar mass and its own bow shock. It could capture Solar objects in its gravity or it could push objects with its bow shock. Either way, its heat would melt the icy objects it encounters. Comets would melt, water would be introduced and a new Goldilocks zone may form in the Kuiper Belt. Gliese 710 would gain material that could increase its mass to the point it reignites to a main sequence star. It would continue to capture material as it traverses the edge of our system. Material that might eventually form planets.

All the while, its gravitational waves (no proven to exist) would ripple changes thru our system affecting the gravitational balance of the system. If it causes Neptune to change orbit that change in gravitational influence will ripple down all the way to the Star.
Earth could move out of its Goldilocks zone. Venus might cool down as it moves into a Goldilocks zone. The Asteroid Field between Mars and Jupiter will be perturbed. The resulting impacts with planets would increase their mass and change their gravitational influences.

Being that the Sun is of more mass than Gliese 710. The Sun might capture it and become a binary system. If that were to happen all the Solar dynamics would change.



I have seen scientific models of such a collision and the galaxies are not actually going to collide. They will merge to become one big galaxy. The model shows most stars avoiding each other. Could be a glitch in the model but that avoidance is also depicted as the formation of binary and trinary systems being created. The only cause could be from stellar bow shock and gravitational capture.

So more than likely, in 2.5 to 3 million years what remains of the Earth will be in a binary star system.