News From the Field

A close call of 0.8 light years


February 16, 2015

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A group of astronomers from the U.S., Europe, Chile and South Africa have determined that 70,000 years ago, a recently discovered dim star is likely to have passed through the solar system's distant cloud of comets, the Oort Cloud. No other star is known to have ever approached our solar system this close--five times closer than the current closest star, Proxima Centauri.Full Story

Source
University of Rochester

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