Solar System

Nearby Stellar Traffic Twice as Heavy as Previously Thought

A new analysis shows that nearly 100 stars buzz our solar system every million years — an effect that can hurl regular cosmic hailstorms of comets toward Earth.

Scholz's star

Solar System

A Star’s Closest Flyby to the Sun

A red dwarf and its brown dwarf companion buzzed through the outer Oort Cloud some 70,000 years ago, around the time when modern humans began migrating from Africa into Eurasia.