Close Encounter of the Stellar Kind: “The unassuming star centered in this sky view will one day be our next door stellar neighbor. The faint 9th magnitude red dwarf, currently 63

light-years away in the constellation Ophiucus, was recently discovered to be approaching our Solar System. Known in catalogs of nearby stars as Gliese (Gl)

710 it is predicted to come within nearly 1 light-year of the Sun … about 1.5 million years from now. At that distance this star, presently much too faint to be

seen by the naked eye, will blaze at 0.6 magnitude – rivaling the apparent brightness of the mighty red giant Antares. Ultimately Gliese 710 poses no direct

collision danger itself although its gravitational influence will likely scatter comets out of the Solar System’s reservoir, the Oort cloud, sending some inbound.” Astronomy Picture of the Day