Gliese 710

Gliese 710 isn’t much to look at. It’s smaller and lighter than the Sun, and just one-tenth as bright. So from its current distance of 62 light-years, it’s much too faint to see with the eye alone. But come back in about 1.3 million years and it’ll be a different story. The star will shine about three times brighter than Sirius, the night’s current brightest star. All the stars are on the move. Like the Sun, they’re orbiting the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Each star follows its own path, so its direction and speed are a little different from all the other stars. Some stars are moving toward us, while others are moving away. Gliese 710 is moving toward the Sun at more than a quarter of a billion miles per year. Studies have shown that it’ll pass just one-sixth of a light-year away – just four percent the distance to the current closest neighbor. That’s closer than any other star will approach the Sun over the next several million years. Gliese 710 will pass through the Oort Cloud – a huge shell of rocky, icy bodies that surrounds the Sun. That will push many of those objects toward the Sun. Some of them could slam into Earth – some un-neighborly gifts from a close neighbor. Gliese 710 is in Serpens, the serpent. The star is about half way up the south-southeastern sky at nightfall. You need a telescope to see it – for now. Script by Damond Benningfield