Rogue Star HIP 85605 on Collision Course With Our Solar System, But Earthlings Need Not Worry
by Matt Williams, Universe Today / phys.org / 1/5/2015

Our Solar System is due for a near-collision with HIP 85605, a star 16 light-years away, in roughly 240,000 years. Credit: Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital, Inc.

It’s known as HIP 85605, one of two stars that make up a binary in the Hercules constellation roughly 16 light years away. And if a recent research paper produced by Dr. Coryn Bailer-Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany is correct, it is on a collision course with our Solar System.

🙁

Now for the good news: according to Bailer-Jones’ calculations, the star will pass by our Solar System at a distance of 0.04 parsecs, which is equivalent to 8,000 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun (8,000 AUs).

Still rates pretty high on the sadz meter.
🙁

In addition, this passage will not affect Earth or any other planet’s orbit around the Sun. And perhaps most importantly of all, none of it will be happening for another 240,000 to 470,000 years from now.

… so, just about the time this impeachment thing winds up?

“Even though the galaxy contains very many stars,” Bailor-Jones told Universe Today via email, “the spaces between them are huge. So even over the (long) life of our galaxy so far, the probability of any two stars have actually collided — as opposed to just coming close — is extremely small.”

However, in astronomical terms, that still counts as a near-miss. In a universe that is 46 billion light years in any direction – and that’s just the observable part of it – an event that is expected to take place just 50 light days away is considered to be pretty close. And in the context of space and time, a quarter of a million to half a million years is the very near future.

… but, um, — how to put this delicately?
None of us will be around to see it.

The real concern is the effect that the passage of HIP 85605 could have on the Oort Cloud – the massive cloud of icy planetesimals that surrounds the Solar System. Given that its distance is between 20,000 and 50,000 AU from our Sun, HIP 85605 would actually move through the Oort cloud and cause serious disruption.

Have we considered deploying some Norwegian scold with pigtails? The Swedish girl obviously isn’t working.

“. . . . he predicts that HIP 85605 has a 90% chance of passing within a single parsec of our Sun in the next 240 to 470 thousand years. However, he also admits that if the astronomy is incorrect, the next closest encounter won’t be happening for another 1.3 million years, when a K7 dwarf known as GL 710 is predicted to pass within 0.10 – 0.44 parsecs.”

Whoo-hoo! That’s one heck of a Kessel run!