tracy wrote:
According to this article, the mysterious super-high speed stars are
more numerous and fastest than previously though. What if one of these
"hypervelocity" stars came through Sun's neighborhood? How dangerous
it could be for life on Earth?

What would be safe distance a star moving at about 700 - 1000 km/s
could get near Sun without disrupting the planetary system?

http://space.newscientist.com/channe...ays-stars.html
...

Lets cut it as this point and look at the requirements for an effect. First
passing through a solar system is very low probability. Second it has to pass
close enough to a planet to impart enough momentum to do something significant.
Those odds are also very low. Very significant is very very low.

But as to what would happen you need a serious program to deal with orbital
mechanics of the planets and then fly a few thousand through the solar system
and get a feel for the results.

Some simple consideration, on average "half" the planets are going to be on the
wrong side of the sun to be seriously affected. The closer to the sun the less
affected. Being tossed out of the solar system is much more likely than falling
into the sun but equally likely with a highly elliptic orbit.

There is really not good answer other than learn the orbital mechanics and
think it through for yourself. There is no way to give a decent answer without
the listener knowing the subject.

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