Searching for Stars Closely Encountering with the Solar System

TL;DR

This study uses updated stellar data to identify stars that closely encounter the solar system within 3 parsecs over the next or past 2 million years, highlighting potential influences on the Oort cloud and Kuiper Belt.

Contribution

It introduces a new search method using an improved catalog and radial velocities to identify close stellar encounters with the solar system.

Findings

Nine new stars within 30 pc are identified as close encounter candidates.

HIP 897825 (GL 710) has an 86% probability of entering the Oort cloud.

GL 710 has a small chance of approaching within 1000 AU, affecting Kuiper Belt objects.

Abstract

Based on a new version of the Hipparcos catalog and currently available radial velocity data, we have searched for stars that either have encountered or will encounter the solar neighborhood within less than 3 pc in the time interval from -2 Myr to +2 Myr. Nine new candidates within 30 pc of the Sun have been found. To construct the stellar orbits relative to the solar orbit, we have used the epicyclic approximation. We show that, given the errors in the observational data, the probability that the well-known star HIP 89 825 (GL 710) encountering with the Sun most closely falls into the Oort cloud is 0.86 in the time interval 1.45-+0.06 Myr. This star also has a nonzero probability, 0.0001, of falling into the region d<1000 AU, where its influence on Kuiper Belt objects becomes possible.