The completeness-corrected rate of stellar encounters with the Sun from the first Gaia data release

TL;DR

This study uses Gaia DR1 data combined with radial velocities to identify stars passing close to the Sun, estimating encounter rates and predicting the closest approach of known stars like Gl 710, with implications for the solar system.

Contribution

It provides the first Gaia-based estimate of stellar encounter rates with the Sun, accounting for observational incompleteness and comparing Gaia results with previous data.

Findings

16 stars pass within 2 parsecs of the Sun.

Estimated encounter rate within 5 Myr is 545 +/- 59 per Myr.

Closest predicted approach of Gl 710 is about 16,000 AU.

Abstract

I report on close encounters of stars to the Sun found in the first Gaia data release (GDR1). Combining Gaia astrometry with radial velocities of around 320 000 stars drawn from various catalogues, I integrate orbits in a Galactic potential to identify those stars which pass within a few parsecs. Such encounters could influence the solar system, for example through gravitational perturbations of the Oort cloud. 16 stars are found to come within 2 pc (although a few of these have dubious data). This is fewer than were found in a similar study based on Hipparcos data, even though the present study has many more candidates. This is partly because I reject stars with large radial velocity uncertainties (>10 km/s), and partly because of missing stars in GDR1 (especially at the bright end). The closest encounter found is Gl 710, a K dwarf long-known to come close to the Sun in about 1.3 Myr. The Gaia astrometry predict a much closer passage than pre-Gaia estimates, however: just 16 000 AU (90% confidence interval: 10 000 to 21 000 AU), which will bring this star well within the Oort cloud. Using a simple model for the spatial, velocity, and luminosity distributions of stars, together with an approximation of the observational selection function, I model the incompleteness of this Gaia-based search as a function of the time and distance of closest approach. Applying this to a subset of the observed encounters (excluding duplicates and stars with implausibly large velocities), I estimate the rate of stellar encounters within 5 pc averaged over the past and future 5 Myr to be 545 +/- 59 per Myr. Assuming a quadratic scaling of the rate within some encounter distance (which my model predicts), this corresponds to 87 +/- 9 per My within 2 pc. A more accurate analysis and assessment will be possible with future Gaia data releases.