Doomed! We’re all doomed!
March 12th, 2010
In a million years or so the solar system is in for a close encounter:
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.
[...]
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.
[Via James Nicoll]
