It’s being called a very close shave, at least in astronomical terms: new research indicates that 70,000 years ago a dim star passed within a mere 8 trillion kilometers (5 trillion miles) of our solar system.
That’s about one-fifth the distance from the solar system to Proxima Centauri, the star that is currently our system’s closest stellar neighbor, and the closest that any star has ever come to our system.
–
The paper was published Feb. 12, 2015 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
