What if a red dwarf star with 0.12 solar masses plunged through the outer Solar System on an unbound hyperbolic trajectory, passing the Sun at a closest distance of 40 AU? All eight planets, every major dwarf planet from Ceres to Eris, and the largest scattered-disc objects share their real January 2025 configuration as the interloper sweeps past. Scholz's Star actually grazed the Solar System about 70,000 years ago at 0.8 light-years, but a closer 40 AU passage would gravitationally roil the Oort Cloud, injecting comets into the inner system and potentially destabilising the outer planets' orbits over millions of years.

Red Dwarf Flyby of the Solar System

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