A new set of star velocity data indicates that Gliese 710 has an 86 percent chance of ploughing into the Solar System within the next 1.5 million years.



The Solar System is surrounded by thousands of stars, but until recently it wasn't at all clear where they were all heading.
In 1997, however, astronomers published the Hipparcos Catalogue giving detailed position and velocity measurements of some 100,000 stars in our neighbourhood, all gathered by the European Space Agency's Hipparcos spacecraft. It's fair to say that the Hipparcos data has revolutionised our understanding of the 'hood.

In particular, this data allowed astronomers to work out which stars we'd been closer to in the past and which we will meet in the future. It turns out that 156 stars fall into this category and that the Sun has a close encounter with another star (meaning an approach within 1 parsec) every 2 million years or so.

In 2007, however, the Hipparcos data was revised and other measurements of star velocities have since become available. How do these numbers change the figures?

Today, Vadim Bobylev at the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St Petersburg gives us the answer. He's combined the Hipparcos data with several new databases and found an additional nine stars that have either had a close encounter with the Sun or are going to.

But he's also made a spectacular prediction. The original Hipparcos data showed that an orange dwarf star called Gliese 710 is heading our way and will arrive sometime within the next 1.5 million years.


Gliese 710

Of course, trajectories are difficult to calculate when the data is poor so nobody has really been sure about what's going to happen.

What the new data has allowed Bobylev to do is calculate the probability of Gliese 710 smashing into the Solar System. What he's found is a shock.

He says there is 86 percent chance that Gliese 710 will plough through the Oort Cloud of frozen stuff that extends some 0.5 parsecs into space.

That may sound like a graze but it is likely to have serious consequences. Such an approach would send an almighty shower of comets into the Solar System which will force us to keep our heads down for a while. And a probability of 86 percent is about as close to certainty as this kind of data can get.

The good news is that Bobylev says the chances of Gliese 710 penetrating further into the Solar System, inside the Kuiper Belt, are much smaller, just 1 in a 1000. So that's all right, then.

Keep calm and carry on.

Source:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24917/

More info on Gliese 710
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_710

To make a slight personal note here.

Oh and Aladin, I am waiting for your sharp and thoroughly result of your extensive reading ability’s and your utmost respected BS interpretation.

the sentence on "shower of comets into the Solar System" does ring a bell, doesn't it.

Pretty crazy. Just goes to show we still have no idea what's awaiting our civilization, planet, system, and galaxy in the cosmological long term if we can make it past our ability to self destruct in the short term. If Gliese 710 doesn't get us, this will most assuredly will:

Smith's Cloud Will Crash Into Our Galaxy




Smith's Cloud Speeding Toward Collision With Our Galaxy

A giant cloud of hydrogen gas is speeding toward a collision with our Milky Way Galaxy, and when it hits -- in less than 40 million years -- it may set off a spectacular burst of stellar fireworks. "The leading edge of this cloud is already interacting with gas from our Galaxy," said Felix J. Lockman, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), leader of a team of astronomers who used the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to study the object. The scientists presented their findings to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Austin, Texas.

The cloud, called Smith's Cloud, after the astronomer who discovered it in 1963, contains enough hydrogen to make a million stars like the Sun. Eleven thousand light-years long and 2,500 light-years wide, it is only 8,000 light-years from our Galaxy's disk. It is careening toward our Galaxy at more than 150 miles per second, aimed to strike the Milky Way's disk at an angle of about 45 degrees. "If you could see this cloud with your eyes, it would be a very impressive sight in the night sky," Lockman said. "From tip to tail it would cover almost as much sky as the Orion constellation. But as far as we know it is made entirely of gas -- no one has found a single star in it."

The detailed GBT study dramatically changed the astronomers' understanding of the cloud. Its velocity shows that it is falling into the Milky Way, not leaving it, and the new data show that it is plowing up Milky Way gas before it as it falls.

"Its shape, somewhat similar to that of a comet, indicates that it's already hitting gas in our Galaxy's outskirts," Lockman said. "It is also feeling a tidal force from the gravity of the Milky Way and may be in the process of being torn apart. Our Galaxy will get a rain of gas from this cloud, then in about 20 to 40 million years, the cloud's core will smash into the Milky Way's plane," Lockman explained. The cloud is apparently moving towards the disk of the Milky Way at 73 ± 26 kilometers per second. Smith's Cloud is expected to merge with the Milky Way in 27 million years at a point in the Perseus arm. Astronomers believe it will strike the Milky Way disk at a 45° angle, and its impact may produce a burst of star formation or a supershell of neutral hydrogen.

http://www.viewzone.com/milkyway.html We are from another galaxy in the process of joining with the Milky Way. The Milky Way is actually not our parent galaxy.They now say we are from the Sagittarius galaxy,and that the milky way galaxy is slowly eating it up,i see a lot more stars coming closer to ours in the near future,i reckon we'd be pretty lucky, if we scrap through without any near misses.

Proxima Centauri is the closest star as we speak at a distance of 4.2 light-years.

Gliese 710 when calculations are indeed correct will approach us at a distance of 1.1 light-years. This will cause great gravitational disturbance in again the Van Oort Belt which will change the paths of the millions and millions of comets.

Besides the possibility Earth will be hit by comets from the Van Oort Belt it is also possible our Sun and Gliese 710 will collide as a “common proper motion pair” The possibility both stars will collide as a double star system is very little due to the low mass of Gliese.

When Gliese would have more mass or it will approach us within 0.25 light-years the possibility will exist we will transfer in a double Sun system. This would mean not a chance left we will survive.

Milky Way Cannibalizes Sagittarius - Earth's Home



What does it all mean?

We of the overarching Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy have finally come down next to, and even with the massively powerful spiral armed equatorial plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. In our movement through space, our Earth has now fully begun to respond to the more powerful galactic energies and electro-gravitational bias of the massive Milky Way. We have reached the higher energy equatorial disc region of the massive spiral arm. We have now been "adopted" by a new system, a stronger and more powerful system, and we can expect changes on almost every level of energy.

Whatever these changes are, they are all part of the natural birth, death, rebirth and transformation of the cosmos. As our knowledge of the universe grows, we cannot but understand how much we do not understand. Such is life.

New 'Alien Invader' Star Clusters Found in Milky Way


As many as one quarter of the star clusters in our Milky Way -- many more than previously thought -- are invaders from other galaxies, according to a new study.

As many as one quarter of the star clusters in our Milky Way -- many more than previously thought -- are invaders from other galaxies, according to a new study. The report also suggests there may be as many as six dwarf galaxies yet to be discovered within the Milky Way rather than the two that were previously confirmed.

The researchers' work also suggests that the Milky Way may have swallowed-up more dwarf galaxies than was previously thought. They found that many of the foreign clusters originally existed within dwarf galaxies -- 'mini' galaxies of up to 100 million stars that sit within our larger Milky Way. The study suggests that there are more of these accreted dwarf galaxies in our Milky Way than was thought.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 161428.htm

Well there comes a time, when Earth is apparently long gone the Milky Way will collide with the Andromeda galaxy this will make "our" galaxy two times, maybe three times as big as it is now.

Andromeda while we speak as well as the Milky Way for that matter should go on a diet, because they're eating like starved cannibals.

Andromeda and Milky Way Galaxies Colliding


NASA | Take a "Swift" Tour of the Andromeda Galaxy


The thought of this will happen is mind blowing on itself.

I read about this as well some time ago but it doesn't seem to be getting as much coverage as it should be. I mean, we're actually aliens to the Milky Way, and our home galaxy is being gobbled up! It would appear that other mainstream science isn't taking this as fact perhaps and only as theory?