The Alpha Centauri system, the closest to Earth, contains three stars: Alpha Centauri A and B, and Proxima Centauri,the closest star to the Sun at just 4.24 light-years away.

“The best match for today's outer solar system that we found with our simulations is a star that was slightly lighter than our Sun – about 0.8 solar masses,” said Amith Govind, co-author of ...

If our species manages to hang on for a few billion additional years, we might be in for a wild ride — stars passing in the vicinity of the sun could cause planets in our solar system to collide ...