It is a white dwarf (the dense, hot corpse of a Sun-like star). Recently, it was calculated that she was approaching the Sun, which could be catastrophic. What is the truth regarding the wandering star that approaches the Sun?
Observations with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) rule this out. In 2022, it was said that in approximately 29,000 years it would be dangerously close to our solar system. It was called WD 0810-353. Its speed was determined using a spectrum of its light.
Wrong speed
But the presence of a strong magnetic field can have a profound effect on a star’s spectrum. It could divide its spectral lines into several and shift them to other wavelengths. This aspect was not taken into account in the first study.
The Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile was used in the new research. They hoped to capture high-precision spectra of the white dwarf. It was discovered that the previously reported speed of the star could be explained by the magnetic field.
«We discovered that the approach speed measured by the Gaia project is incorrect. The planned close encounter is not actually going to happen,” says Stefano Bagnulo. He is an astronomer at Armagh Observatory and co-author of the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal. “In fact, it may not even be moving toward the Sun.”
Possible collisions
Close encounters with our stellar neighbors are not uncommon in our brave Solar System. But the outcome of such a meeting can vary significantly. It is thought that more than 40,000 stars may have passed through the Oort cloud (a giant layer of icy debris at the distant edge of the Solar System). Our most recent interloper is the Scholz star. He visited this region about 70,000 years ago, just when our ancestors were taking their first steps out of Africa, reports the ESO.
The wandering star approaching the Sun may be a false alarm. It doesn’t mean it can’t happen in the future. Oort cloud objects are loosely attached to the Solar System. It only takes a slight gravitational push to alter their orbits. As other stars pass through the Oort cloud, they may send some of the objects there on a collision course with Earth.
