70,000 years may sound like a long time, but for the solar system, it's like it was yesterday.
Scientists are just now learning about Scholz's star, a red dwarf that passed through our solar system about 70,000 years ago, along with a brown dwarf. In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists at the University of Rochester in New York explain that the star likely passed through the Oort Cloud at the edge of our solar system — the closest that any known star has come.
Scholz's star came within 0.8 light years of the sun — the solar system's next-closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away. The scientists noted that while a star passing through the Oort cloud could affect the orbits of comets there, Scholz's star didn't have significant effects on the comets when it passed through.
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After spotting the star, the scientists used radial velocity measurements to confirm that it is heading away from the solar system. They then traced its movements to determine the time frame of its brush with our solar system. Scholz's star is now 20 light years away.
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