Killer stars from deep black space threaten Earth

Killer stars from deep black space threaten Earth: "Outer space poses a threat to the Solar System. This time it was declared not by homegrown advocates of the near doomsday, but solid astrophysicists. Earlier this year the 217th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society was held in Seattle where the most dangerous objects for our planet were named.

With the help of The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, researchers have compiled a list of stars that may represent a potential threat to Earth, for example, by approaching the Sun and impacting objects around it.

It turned out that of the 40,000 red dwarfs (objects of this class are most common in the universe) nearest to us, 18 are quite capable of 'attacking' the solar system.

One of the most dangerous objects is the Oort cloud, a giant bubble containing billions of ice and rock boulders. Researchers believe that these objects are constantly circulating through the solar system as comets, leaving deep craters when coming into contact with planets. They fell on Earth as well. Although the Oort cloud is located at a distance of 50,000 to 100,000 astronomical units from the Sun, under the influence of stellar gravity, planets in our solar system, including Earth, may undergo an active comet bombardment. At least, John Bochanski from the University of Pennsylvania believes this to be a possibility"