New Delhi: An international team of astronomers have discovered a runaway star wandered into our solar system's backyard about 70000 years ago. The findings are published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
This runaway star, nick-named "Scholz's star" after its discoverer, penetrated into the Oort Cloud, a frozen graveyard in the very outer most reaches of the solar system from where many comets are likely to originate.
The team, led by Eric Mamajek comprised of astronomers from the US, Europe, Chile and South Africa, representing University of Rochester.
The flight path of the star suggests that it traveled to the solar system around 70,000 years ago and passed approximately 52,000 astronomical units away (or about 0.8 light years, which equals 8 trillion kilometers, or 5 trillion miles).
“This is astronomically close; our closest neighbor star Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years distant. No other star is known to have ever approached our solar system this close” reads the journal.
After grazing the solar system, Scholz's star has continued traveling and it is now some 20 light years away in the constellation of Monoceros.
Even though the star is almost non-existent to the naked eye, by there is a possibility that out ancestors 70,000 years ago could see it.
