Can a Rogue Star Kick Earth out of the Solar System?

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of "Your Place in the Universe." Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

It's a dangerous universe out there, and life on any planet faces numerous existential threats — including the possibility of the planet getting kicked out of its solar system altogether. One team of researchers ran the numbers and found that the Earth is safe from such a catastrophe — almost.