Astronomers have discovered a new star that apparently passed though the outskirts of our solar system some 70,000 years ago.

The star most likely sailed through the Oort cloud, which is made up of a distant cloud of comets and asteroids. Its closest fly-by came to within 0.8 light years from Earth, according to astronomers from the U.S., South Africa and Chile.

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In astronomical terms, it's considered as a close call. The nearest neighboring star from our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is at a safe distance of 4.2 light years away from us.

This star, also called a "Scholz's star", left astronomers curious about its place in the galaxy despite being relatively near our solar system. This star is also unique as it moves in a bizarre, ultra slow motion manner across the sky called a tangential motion.

Lead author Eric Mamajek a professor of astronomy and physics from the University of Rochester, said most stars near our system produce larger tangential motions. This indicates this star's slow tangential motion could suggest it's either moving towards us or away from us.

Fortunately, further evidence and observations confirmed the star is moving away from the solar system, Mamajek adds. Using the Southern African Large Telescope and the Magellan telescope in Chile's Las Campanas Observatory, astronomers plotted its past trajectory and measured the star's current velocity.

Mamajek also notes the close flyby of Scholz's star did almost little impact to the Oort cloud. A star that usually passes through those regions in the cloud can trigger a comet shower directed at the inner solar system. He also believes other Oort cloud asteroid perturbers can be lurking nearby other stars.

Scholz's star is a low mass red dwarf that's part of a binary system and has a brown dwarf partner. Brown dwarfs are considered failed stars since their masses are too low to produce the hydrogen fusion needed to become a full blown star. They're still more massive than gas giants such as Jupiter.

This study was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Tagsscholz star, red dwarf star, Oort Cloud, star close call close encounter solar system, Close Call: Star 0.8 Light Years Away Made Close Encounter with our Solar System