70,000 years ago a dim red star passed through the outer edges of our solar system, according to University of Rochester astronomers. Scholz's star entered the distant Oort Cloud, mingled with comets, then left for deep space.
What a sublime, Gothic tale this is! Start with the visual:
Such a gloomy sight. Note that Scholz' is really two stars:
The star is part of a binary star system: a low-mass red dwarf star (with mass about 8% that of the Sun) and a “brown dwarf” companion (with mass about 6% that of the Sun). Brown dwarfs are considered “failed stars;” their masses are too low to fuse hydrogen in their cores like a “star,” but they are still much more massive than gas giant planets like Jupiter.
This connects with various Gothic stories. Did the nomadic pair nudge Yuggoth, or deposit that planet with us? Can we imagine a strange life form voyaging with this binary, gazing towards Sol and seeing the early days of humanity? Perhaps they visited.
The astronomers add one more disturbing idea to their account:
While the close flyby of Scholz’s star likely had little impact on the Oort Cloud, Mamajek points out that “other dynamically important Oort Cloud perturbers may be lurking among nearby stars.”
Paging Niven and Pournelle.
To close:
I have whirled with the earth at the dawning,
When the sky was a vaporous flame;
I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.
-"Nemesis," H. P. Lovecraft
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