Study of Close Stellar Encounters with the Solar System Based on Data from the Gaia EDR3 Catalogue

TL;DR

This study analyzes stellar candidates for close encounters with the Solar system using Gaia EDR3 data, employing three methods to estimate encounter parameters, and identifies stars that may have passed or will pass near the Oort cloud.

Contribution

The paper introduces a comparative analysis of three orbit integration methods for studying stellar encounters, confirming their consistency and identifying key candidate stars.

Findings

Five stars are potential candidates for close encounters with the Oort cloud.

The star GJ 710 is predicted to pass within 0.02 pc in about 1.32 million years.

Results are consistent across all three orbit calculation methods.

Abstract

We have studied stellar candidates for close (within 1 pc) encounters with the Solar system. For all of the stars under consideration the kinematic characteristics have been taken from the Gaia EDR3 catalogue. The parameters of the encounters of these stars with the Solar system have been calculated using three methods: (1) the linear one, (2) by integrating the orbits in an axisymmetric potential, and (3) by integrating the orbits in a potential with a spiral density wave. All three methods are shown to yield similar results. We have selected five stars that are good candidates for reaching the boundaries of the Oort cloud and passing through it. Based on the second method, in good agreement with the other two methods, we have obtained the following estimates of the encounter parameters for the star GJ 710: $t_{min}=1.320\pm0.028$ Myr and $d_{min}=0.020\pm0.007$ pc. It is also interesting to note the star Gaia EDR3 510911618569239040 with parameters $t_{min}=-2.863\pm0.046$ Myr and $d_{min}=0.057\pm0.079$ pc.