Our date with Gliese 710

[kc0itf]

http://news.discovery.com/space/star-pr ... ystem.html

Will this trigger our solar system to reconfigure again?

[StevenJay]

I think one of the saddest things about mainstream "fluff" pieces like this is the degree of ignorance, naivete and plain ol' brainwashing displayed by, not only the authors, but the majority of the accompanying comments. Hardly a "Huh??" or a "Hey, wait a minute!..." to be seen.

I see articles like this as being little more than a means by which to quietly perpetuate and reinforce the basic tenets of mainstream cosmology in the minds of the unquestioning masses.

[jjohnson]

This makes some interesting assumptions in basic calculations. FIrst, that the writer knows accurately where the solar system will be in space at a future time, 1.5 million years hence. Second, that he knows Gliese's present position accurately relative to Earth, and knows Gliese's velocity vector with exquisite precision. Third, that he can deduce Gliese's vector component toward the solar system's position at future times, in order to predict both distance between the two, and probability of collision or, more likely, least distance over time, with increasing distance resulting after the time of least distance. That's a pretty good assumption about a body of estimated mass 63 LY away.

It's particularly astounding considering we have had problems predicting space probes' future positions accurately within our own heliospheric neighborhood.

I can only calculate that if the writer's time to 'collision' are correct, that Gliese is 1) approaching us at a relative velocity of about 12.5 km/s, and 2) he is pretty sure that neither our solar system nor Gliese will encounter any other closer or significant gravitational perturbations in the ensuing 1.5M year interval. Like, say, our upcoming encounter with Barnard's Star at under 4 LY.