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Very low but a more common and likely possibility is that it could disturb the oort cloud and cause comets to fall in system. Guess that could classify as what

Very low but a more common and likely possibility is that it could disturb the oort cloud and cause comets to fall in system. Guess that could classify as what you are referring to depending on your definition of solar system. A passing star is more likely to do this though and we believe that they indeed have caused disturbances in our oort cloud in the past. They might be potentially less numerous than rogue planets as our universe ages but they have a far larger potential hill sphere than even a very large planet so interactions with neighboring stars' hill spheres are more likely and frequent.

adolph 5y ago
I've normally seen "oort" capitalized, so here is some background if others have the same question as me. The Oort cloud (/ɔːrt, ʊərt/),[1] sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud,[2] first described in 1950 by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort,[3] is a theoretical[4] concept of a cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals proposed to surround the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 au (0.03 to 3.2 light-years).[note 1][5] It is divided into two regions: a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud (or Hills cloud) and a spherical outer Oort cloud. Both regions lie beyond the heliosphere and in interstellar space.[5][6] The Kuiper belt and the scattered disc, the other two reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth as far from the Sun as the Oort cloud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud
- alistairSH 5y ago
  It was not very long ago that I realized the outer bounds of our Oort cloud are actually closer to Alpha Centauri (4.25 light years away) than the sun. The scale of the universe never ceases to elicit feelings of existential dread.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    The outer edges of the cloud seem to be at ~100K AU [0], while the α Centauri system is ~268K AU from us [1]. NASA also gives the same number [2] for the distance to the edge of the cloud. So, it looks like the Cloud extends almost halfway to α Centauri, but not that it's "closer to α Centauri than us"). As for the scale of the Universe: https://htwins.net/scale2/ https://htwins.net/scale2/ --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud#/media/File:PIA17046_-_Voyager_1_Goes_Interstellar.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud#/media/File:PIA1704... [1]: https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/nearest_star_info.html https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/nearest_star_i... [2]: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud/overview/ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud/overvie...
    - alistairSH 5y ago
      Huh, the first paragraph of that same wikipedia says the cloud extends to 2000 AU. Either way, whenever I try to think about these things, I feel mild anxiety. Why am I here? What's the point of all this? I'M SO TINY! Aaaahhhhhhhhh! I probably need to lay off the sci-fi novels for a while.
actually_a_dog 5y ago
This sounds reasonable to me, assuming Mercury didn't either fall into the Sun or hit Venus. However, from the perspective of Earth, we might not notice this much, due to the effect of Jupiter (usually) either flinging comets away from us, or actually absorbing the impact of the comets.

adolph 5y ago

I've normally seen "oort" capitalized, so here is some background if others have the same question as me. The Oort cloud (/ɔːrt, ʊərt/),[1] sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud,[2] first described in 1950 by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort,[3] is a theoretical[4] concept of a cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals proposed to surround the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 au (0.03 to 3.2 light-years).[note 1][5] It is divided into two regions: a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud (or Hills cloud) and a spherical outer Oort cloud. Both regions lie beyond the heliosphere and in interstellar space.[5][6] The Kuiper belt and the scattered disc, the other two reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth as far from the Sun as the Oort cloud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

alistairSH 5y ago
It was not very long ago that I realized the outer bounds of our Oort cloud are actually closer to Alpha Centauri (4.25 light years away) than the sun. The scale of the universe never ceases to elicit feelings of existential dread.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  The outer edges of the cloud seem to be at ~100K AU [0], while the α Centauri system is ~268K AU from us [1]. NASA also gives the same number [2] for the distance to the edge of the cloud. So, it looks like the Cloud extends almost halfway to α Centauri, but not that it's "closer to α Centauri than us"). As for the scale of the Universe: https://htwins.net/scale2/ https://htwins.net/scale2/ --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud#/media/File:PIA17046_-_Voyager_1_Goes_Interstellar.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud#/media/File:PIA1704... [1]: https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/nearest_star_info.html https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/nearest_star_i... [2]: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud/overview/ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud/overvie...
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    Huh, the first paragraph of that same wikipedia says the cloud extends to 2000 AU. Either way, whenever I try to think about these things, I feel mild anxiety. Why am I here? What's the point of all this? I'M SO TINY! Aaaahhhhhhhhh! I probably need to lay off the sci-fi novels for a while.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

This sounds reasonable to me, assuming Mercury didn't either fall into the Sun or hit Venus. However, from the perspective of Earth, we might not notice this much, due to the effect of Jupiter (usually) either flinging comets away from us, or actually absorbing the impact of the comets.