

Orange Dwarf Star Set to Smash into The Solar System - yagibear
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24917/

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petercooper
I need to recommend Astronomy Cast to anyone interested in this stuff, simply
because it's _so_ good. They cover individual astronomy topics in 30 minute
shows.

There's an episode all about the Oort Cloud and the interstellar medium (the
regions Gilese would be skirting past) in
[http://www.astronomycast.com/astronomy/episode-65-the-end-
of...](http://www.astronomycast.com/astronomy/episode-65-the-end-of-our-tour-
through-the-solar-system/)

And if Gilese's ability to send a ton of comets into the inner Solar System
scares you, you might want to miss the "Death From The Skies" episode where
they cover all of the myriad of ways we could get wiped out in way less than 1
million years ;-)
[http://www.astronomycast.com/people/interviews/ep-112-death-...](http://www.astronomycast.com/people/interviews/ep-112-death-
from-the-skies-interview-with-phil-plait/)

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clavalle
Orange Dwarfs are similar to our Sun and may be good candidates for life
sustaining planets. This might be a good opportunity to explore extra-solar
planets for life or even seed that system with life or similarly organized
systems. Then we would have two systems awaiting the next fly by and so on....

~~~
petercooper
True, but since we have > 1 million years to go, I'd suspect (make that
"dearly hope!") we'll have either died out or otherwise not consider ourselves
limited to the Solar System by that point :-)

~~~
clavalle
I am hoping that some form of intelligent life still exists here in a million
years.

I'd like to hope that we will not be limited to the solar system too. For
plans we know will work based on the physics we know now, this is it. Better a
pedestrian plan that will work than a plan that hopes that fantastic
technology is developed in the future.

~~~
petercooper
_For plans we know will work based on the physics we know now, this is it._

Not _really_. Physics, as we understand it, and even the technology we know
will work now (e.g. ion drives) can get us to other star systems - it's just
there isn't much _point_ considering how much time it'd take and how little
danger we're in right now. Dr. Pamela Gay covered this in an episode of
Astronomy Cast: [http://www.astronomycast.com/space-
flight/ep-145-interstella...](http://www.astronomycast.com/space-
flight/ep-145-interstellar-travel/)

That said, I always work on the theory that our current understanding of
anything is extremely limited. This works on macro and micro scales, from how
we understand the Internet right up to physics. What we know about almost
anything now compared to 100 years ago is black and white - barring blowing
each other to bits or a major catastrophe, there's no reason to believe we
won't be ridiculing our pitiful 2010 level of understanding of the universe in
2110.

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sutro
Someone needs to apprise Bruce Willis of this situation.

~~~
SandB0x
Fry Hard. (sorry)

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danparsonson
... sometime over the next 1.5 million years.

Probably.

