Gliese 710, or HIP 89825, is an orange

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Serpens Serpens ( grc, , , the Serpent) is a constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it remains one of the 88 modern constellations designated by the International ...

Cauda. It is projected to pass near the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

in about 1.29 million years at a predicted minimum distance of 0.051

parsec The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to or (au), i.e. . The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and ...

s— (about 1.60 trillion km) – about 1/25th of the current distance to

Proxima Centauri Proxima Centauri is a small, low-mass star located away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the 'nearest tarof Centaurus'. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes and is the nearest-kno ...

. Such a distance would make for a similar brightness to the brightest planets, optimally reaching an

apparent visual magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's lig ...

of about −2.7. The star's

proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...

will peak around one

arcminute A minute of arc, arcminute (arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of one degree. Since one degree is of a turn (or complete rotation), one minute of arc is of a turn. The na ...

per year, a rate of apparent motion that would be noticeable over a human lifespan. This is a timeframe, based on data from ''Gaia'' DR3, well within the parameters of current models which cover the next 15 million years.

Description

Gliese 710 currently is from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

in the constellation

and has a below naked-eye visual magnitude of 9.69. A

stellar classification In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their stellar spectrum, spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a Prism (optics), prism or diffraction grati ...

of K7 Vk means it is a small

main-sequence In astronomy, the main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hert ...

star mostly generating energy through the

thermonuclear fusion Thermonuclear fusion is the process of atomic nuclei combining or “fusing” using high temperatures to drive them close enough together for this to become possible. There are two forms of thermonuclear fusion: ''uncontrolled'', in which the re ...

of hydrogen at its core. (The suffix 'k' indicates that the spectrum shows absorption lines from interstellar matter.) Stellar mass is about 57% of the

Sun's mass The solar mass () is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. It is approximately equal to the mass of ...

with an estimated 58% of the Sun's radius. It is suspected to be a

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as ...

that may vary in magnitude from 9.65 to 9.69. As of 2020, no planets have been detected

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

ing it.

Computing and details of the closest approach

In their work Bobylev et.al in 2010 suggested Gliese 710 has an 86% chance of passing through the Oort cloud, assuming the Oort cloud to be a spheroid around the Sun with semiminor and semimajor axes of 80,000 and 100,000 AU respectively. The distance of closest approach of Gliese 710 is generally difficult to compute precisely as it depends sensitively on its current position and velocity; Bobylev et.al. estimated that Gliese_710 would pass within () of the Sun. At the time, there was even a 1 in 10,000 chance of the star penetrating into the region (d < 1,000 AU) where the influence of the passing star on

Kuiper belt The Kuiper belt () is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times ...

objects would be significant. Results from new calculations that include input data from ''Gaia'' DR3 indicate that the flyby of Gliese 710 to the Solar System will on average be slightly closer at () in time, but with considerably less uncertainty. The effects of such an encounter on the orbit of the Pluto–Charon system (and therefore, on the classical trans-Neptunian belt) are negligible, but Gliese 710 will traverse the outer Oort cloud (inside 100,000 AU or 0.48 pc) and reach the outskirts of the inner Oort cloud (inward of 20,000 AU). Gliese 710 has the potential to

perturb Perturbation or perturb may refer to: * Perturbation theory, mathematical methods that give approximate solutions to problems that cannot be solved exactly * Perturbation (geology), changes in the nature of alluvial deposits over time * Perturbatio ...

the

Oort cloud The Oort cloud (), sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud, first described in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, is a theoretical concept of a cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals proposed to surround the Sun at distances ranging from 2 ...

in the outer

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

, exerting enough force to send showers of

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

s into the inner Solar System for millions of years, triggering visibility of about ten naked-eye comets per year, and possibly causing an

impact event An impact event is a collision between astronomical objects causing measurable effects. Impact events have physical consequences and have been found to regularly occur in planetary systems, though the most frequent involve asteroids, comets or me ...

. According to Filip Berski and Piotr Dybczyński, this event will be "the strongest disrupting encounter in the future and history of the Solar System". Earlier dynamic models indicated that the net increase in cratering rate due to the passage of Gliese 710 would be no more than 5%. They had originally estimated that the closest approach would happen in 1,360,000 years when the star will approach within () of the Sun. Gaia DR2 later found the minimum

perihelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

distance to be or about 1.281 million years from now. Table of parameters of predictions of Gliese 710 encounter with Sun

Notes

References

External links

SolStation.com

VizieR variable star database
* Wikisk
image
of HD 168442 (Gliese 710) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gliese 710 BD-01 3474 168442 089825 0710 K-type main-sequence stars Serpens (constellation) TIC objects

Description

Computing and details of the closest approach

See also

Notes

References

External links