Gliese 710
Star in the constellation Serpens
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Through Star, Constellation and Sun
Description
Gliese 710 is currently 62.3 light-years (19.1 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation Serpens and has a below naked-eye visual magnitude of 9.69. A stellar classification of K7 Vk means it is a small main-sequence star mostly generating energy through the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in its core. (The suffix 'k' indicates that the spectrum shows absorption lines from interstellar matter.) Stellar mass is about 57% of the Sun's mass with an estimated 58% of the Sun's radius. It is suspected to be a variable star that may vary in magnitude from 9.65 to 9.69. As of 2020, no planets have been detected orbiting it.
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Computing and details of the closest approach
In their 2010 work, Bobylev et al. suggested that Gliese 710 has an 86% chance of passing through the Oort cloud, assuming the Oort cloud to be a spheroid around the Sun with semiminor and semimajor axes of 80,000 and 100,000 AU, respectively. The distance of closest approach of Gliese 710 is generally difficult to compute precisely as it depends sensitively on its current position and velocity; Bobylev et al. estimated that Gliese 710 would pass within 0.311±0.167 parsecs (1.014±0.545 light-years) of the Sun. At the time, there was even a 1-in-10,000 chance of the star penetrating into the region (d < 1,000 AU) where the influence of the passing star on Kuiper belt objects would be significant.
Results from new calculations that include input data from Gaia DR3 indicate that the flyby of Gliese 710 to the Solar System will on average be closer at 0.051 ± 0.003 pc (0.1663 ± 0.0098 ly; 10,520 ± 620 AU) in 1.29±0.04 Myr time, considerably more precise than previous estimates. One 2026 study refined such estimates, giving a closest passage of 0.0621 ± 0.0023 pc (0.2025 ± 0.0075 ly; 12,810 ± 470 AU) in 1.3446±0.0022 Myr. The effects of such an encounter on the orbit of the Pluto–Charon system (and therefore, on the classical trans-Neptunian belt) are negligible, but Gliese 710 will traverse the outer Oort cloud (inside 100,000 AU or 0.48 pc) and reach the outskirts of the inner Oort cloud (inward of 20,000 AU).
Gliese 710 has the potential to perturb the Oort cloud in the outer Solar System, exerting enough force to send showers of comets into the inner Solar System for millions of years, triggering visibility of about ten naked-eye comets per year, and possibly causing an impact event. According to Filip Berski and Piotr Dybczyński, this event will be "the strongest disrupting encounter in the future and history of the Solar System". Earlier dynamic models indicated that the net increase in cratering rate due to the passage of Gliese 710 would be no more than 5%. They had originally estimated that the closest approach would happen in 1.36 million years when the star will approach within 0.337±0.177 parsecs (1.100±0.577 light-years) of the Sun. Gaia DR2 later found the minimum perihelion distance to be 0.0676±0.0157 parsecs or 13,900±3,200 AU, about 1.281 million years from now.
In popular culture
- In 2022, the final track on popular Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's album Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava was entitled Gliese 710. The song is written entirely in Locrian mode.