Posted by jandrewrogers 2 days ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20260310115201/https://www.willi...
I'm not 100% confident, but rough approximation suggests that a close approach of even 5 AU even at typical interstellar velocities might have an unplesant climate impact by increasing the eccentricity of our orbit.
But our risk of getting sucked into a black hole is really tiny. (Although personally if I had a chance to enter a black hope, I would. I’m just naturally curious.)
So (and again, this is very rough approximation) I mean AU: consider the high speed of interstellar encounters so it won't be there for long, and that it takes the full pull of Sol 6 months to turn us around 180°.
Also, yes, in general this would cause a lot of the Oort cloud to destabilise and a long period of bombardment of all the planets.
5 AU is the perfect distance to really wreck Jupiter, though.
Well yeah.
I clearly could've phrased this better though: I was aiming for "here is an example distance which *is* bad", not as it appears to have been understood "here is the distance where it is *not* bad".
Black hole gravity is ruthless about turning nearby mass into deadly fireworks.
But never zero.