Scholz's Star

Scholz's Star is a very dim pair of stars located about 22 light-years from the Sun. It was discovered in 2013 by astronomer Ralf-Dieter Scholz and officially known as WISE J072003.20−084651.2 or WISE 0720−0846.

What makes this star system special is that about 70,000 years ago, it passed close to our Solar System. During this close pass, it moved through a distant area called the Oort cloud, which is a collection of icy objects far beyond the planets.

This event gives scientists valuable clues about what happens when stars come near our Solar System. Studying Scholz's Star helps experts learn more about the movements of stars and their effects on objects in our own cosmic neighborhood.

Characteristics

Scholz's Star is a pair of dim stars. The bigger star is a red dwarf, and the smaller one is likely a brown dwarf. They orbit each other about every 4 years at a distance similar to that between the Sun and its nearest planet. This star system is quite far from Earth and was only found recently because it does not shine very brightly.

Solar System flyby

The star system WISE 0720−0846 passed about 52,000 astronomical units from the Sun roughly 70,000 years ago. Most simulations show it went through the Solar System's Oort cloud. Even at its closest, this star system would have been too dim to see without special tools.

Later research in 2018 suggested that this star's passing might have affected the Oort cloud more than first thought. Stars like this pass through the Oort cloud about every 100,000 years, but a close approach like this happens only once every 9 million years. In the future, around 1.4 million years from now, another star called Gliese 710 will pass even closer to the Sun.

Naming

The star was first identified as being close to Earth by astronomer Ralf-Dieter Scholz. He shared his discovery on arXiv in November 2013. Because this star system came very close to our Solar System a long time ago, Eric Mamajek and his team called it Scholz's Star in their research paper about the star's speed and path.