Close encounters to the Sun in Gaia DR1

The Gaia astrometry predict a much closer passage than pre-Gaia estimates, however: just 16000AU (90% confidence interval: 10000-21000AU), which will bring this star well within the Oort cloud. Using a simple model for the spatial, velocity, and luminosity distributions of stars, together with an approximation of the observational selection function, I model the incompleteness of this Gaia-based search as a function of the time and distance of closest approach.

Applying this to a subset of the observed encounters (excluding duplicates and stars with implausibly large velocities), I estimate the rate of stellar encounters within 5pc averaged over the past and future 5Myr to be 545+/-59Myr^-1^. Assuming a quadratic scaling of the rate within some encounter distance (which my model predicts), this corresponds to 87+/-9Myr-1 within 2pc. A more accurate analysis and assessment will be possible with future Gaia data releases.