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LevelPegging t1_irveanj wrote

While finding newly undiscovered nearby stars is unlikely, there are wandering stars out there that pass by our solar system and for a brief moment they become the closest star. Scholz's star passed through the Oort cloud around 70,000 years ago, I believe at the time making it the closest star.

About 1.4 million years from now another, larger, star is on a course to pass through the Oort cloud which will cause major disruption and send thousands of comets hurtling into the inner solar system.

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harbourwall t1_irw4u2m wrote

> Scholz's star

Can we tell if it has any satellites, or grabbed any out of the Oort cloud as it passed?

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LevelPegging t1_irw6o3q wrote

I believe its impossible to tell whether it has its own satellites however I imagine it would have picked up something in its gravitational pull. It certainly would have flung a few rocks towards the inner solar system but it would take a million plus years before it reached the inner planets and become detectable.

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