Red Dwarf Star Had a Close Call With Our Solar System

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  About 70,000 years ago a red dwarf star approached our solar system and gravitationally disturbed comets and asteroids. Astronomers have verified that the movement of some of these objects is still marked by that stellar encounter. At a time when modern humans were beginning to leave Africa and the Neanderthals still thrived, Scholz’s star – named after the German astronomer who discovered it – approached less than a light-year from the sun. Today, it’s almost 20 light-years away, but 70,000 years ago, it entered the Oort cloud.

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