The Closest Encounter of a Stellar Kind
70,000 years ago, a binary star passed through the outskirts of the Oort Cloud–was it the closest known stellar encounter?
Mugged by a Passing Star
A close encounter with another star can disrupt the protoplanetary disk of a young star, leaving a smaller disk behind. Can we learn anything about the encounter from the size of the remaining disk? Read on to find out!
Stellar Flybys and Damping Disks: How to Excite an Exoplanet
Close encounters with a passing star can excite a planet into an eccentric or inclined orbit. But a circumstellar disk can damp a planet’s eccentricity and inclination. Who wins? Find out when the authors of this paper model a stellar flyby with two circumstellar disks!