The next million years or so, between 19 and 24 'death stars' will come within 3.26 light years of the sun.

This is close enough to deflect comets away from there original paths and towards Earth - increasing the chance that one will wipe out life on our planet.

This is according to a new paper that has looked at how often stars stray into the Oort cloud - a spherical shell of billions of icy objects that exist in the outer reaches of our solar system.

A particularly close encounter of one star, dubbed Gliese 710, in 1.3 million years' time, stands out.

It is predicted to pass within just 2.3 trillion km or about 16,000 Earth–sun distances, well within the Oort Cloud. 'Certainly anything coming within that distance you should worry about,' said Coryn Bailer-Jones, of the Max Planck Institute for in Heidelberg and the paper's author told the Guardian.  

If this occurs, the strong gravitational force of the star, which has a mass 60 per cent that of our sun, could cause a shower of comets to switch course and target our planet.

Although some will drift into space and others will be absorbed by the sun and other planets, astronomers have warned a significant impact with Earth is entirely possible.

A further 490 to 600 stars will pass the sun within a distance of 16.3 light years within the next million years, the paper claims. 

The latest calculations of 'death stars' comes from movements of more than 300,000 stars surveyed by ESA's Gaia satellite. 

As the solar system moves through the Galaxy, and as other stars move on their own paths, close encounters are inevitable – though 'close' still means many trillions of miles.

A star, depending on its mass and speed, would need to get within about 37 trillion miles (60 trillion kilometres) before it starts to have an effect on the solar system's distant reservoir of comets, the Oort Cloud, which is thought to extend out to 15 trillion kilometres from the sun, 100,000 times the sun–Earth distance. For comparison, the outermost planet Neptune orbits at an average distance of about 2.7 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometres), or 30 sun–Earth distances. 

Understanding the past and future motions of stars is a key goal of Gaia as it collects precise data on stellar positions and motions over its five-year mission. 

After 14 months, the first catalogue of more than a billion stars was recently released, which included the distances and the motions across the sky for more than two million stars.

By combining the new results with existing information, astronomers began a detailed, large-scale search for stars passing close to our sun.

So far, the motions relative to the sun of more than 300,000 stars have been traced through the Galaxy and their closest approach determined for up to five million years in the past and future.

Between 490 and 600 stars will pass the sun within a distance of 16.3 light-years (5 parsecs, or less.

Between 19 and 24 stars will pass at 3.26 light-years (1 parsec) or less. 

Esa highlighted Gliese 710 as the most notable, but says there's no need to worry about a pending apocalypse.

Gliese 710 isn't scheduled to have its near miss with our solar system for another 1.35 million years.

Part of the Sepens Cauda constellation, Gliese 710 currently sits some 64 light-years away.

A mother suffers from a disorder that is causing her feet to shrink.

Sophie Earl-Park, 29, has Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), which is defined as a group of inherited disorders that damage the nerves outside the brain and spine.

Ms Earl-Park, who wears a size five shoe after previously being a six, has had 14 hip replacements since her birth and fractured her hip in four places while in labour with her son Bentley, now six.

She was told she had Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS), which affects the connective tissue, however, after posting a picture of her 'curling and arched' feet on a Facebook support group, a user suggested she may have CMT, in what Mrs Earl-Park describes as a 'eureka' moment. 

She said: 'I immediately Googled CMT and found I had all the classical symptoms - my legs are shaped like an upside down champagne bottle, I've got hammer toes and high arched feet, swan neck fingers (which means they're bending inwards) and I've got hip dysplasia, which is directly linked to CMT. Mrs Earl-Park said: 'It was such a relief to be diagnosed, as it's meant I've been able to do things differently.

'I've been given a wheelchair for long days out, ankle supports and I've also got a mobility scooter to get around, as my CMT is quickly progressing and it's becoming increasingly difficult and exhausting to walk.

'Living with CMT can be challenging on a day-to-day basis and being a "normal" mother to my son is hard because I can't do all the things I want to do with him in the way my peers do with their children.

'On top of all this, my feet have shrunk from a size six to a five and because my arches are so high, my feet are wide so it's a struggle to get shoes. Mrs Earl-Park was born with congenital hip dysplasia and has had 14 major hip operations since birth.

When her son was born, her hip socket fractured in four places, which caused her to need one of her many hip replacements.

Mrs Earl-Park said: 'After the hip replacement I was unable to recover at a normal speed and was made to feel silly by my consultant, but I knew there was something else pretty major going on with my body, as my legs and arms were getting weaker and weaker to the point where I struggled to even hold my son to bottle feed him. Three years later, when she was 26, Mrs Earl-Park was diagnosed with EDS.

She said: 'I joined the EDS Facebook support group and shared a picture of my curling, arched feet and asked if anyone else had the same. 

'A lady messaged me to say my feet looked like hers and she had CMT- it was a eureka moment.

'I immediately Googled CMT and found I had all the classical symptoms - my legs are shaped like an upside down champagne bottle, I've got hammer toes and high arched feet, swan neck fingers (which means they're bending inwards) and I've got hip dysplasia, which is directly linked to CMT.

'In addition, I have foot drop on both feet that requires me to walk with my legs up high in order to stop them dragging on the floor.

'Luckily my new GP had seen CMT in other patients, recognised the foot deformities and referred me to a neurologist. As soon as I walked into the consultant's room he said he knew I had CMT.

A man has been convicted of murdering his niece - who was also his lover - by smashing a TV over her head.

Now Christopher Wall, 58, is facing a lifetime behind bars for battering 25-year-old Hayley Wall to death last December. 

Miss Wall died in hospital nine days after she was found wandering around outside a supermarket with serious head injuries.

But before she slipped out of consciousness, she was able to tell emergency crews her name and address. 

She also told one of the paramedics who attended to her: 'My partner smashed a TV over the top of my head. When police visited her home they found signs of a disturbance on the second floor - including a door on the landing that was knocked off its frame. There were two long, dark hairs embedded in a crack halfway up the door as well as a number of blood spots.

Officers also found a damaged flat-screen TV at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor while blood-stained clothing, blood smears and blood staining was found in the en-suite bathroom.

Wall was asleep in the bed with what appeared to be stab or puncture wounds in his back as well as a cut to his hand.

An ambulance was called and he was treated for his injuries. He was arrested on suspicion of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent and, after being treated in hospital, taken into custody. Hayley died as a result of her injuries in hospital in the early hours of December 22 last year.

A lodger who lived with the pair told police that on the evening of December 13 he heard them return home sometime after 7.50pm. They both appeared to have been drinking, he said. 

He later heard shouting - and Hayley crying as if she was in pain - before she appeared at his door with her head covered in blood. She then left the house.

She was later found by a group of students outside the Charminster Supermarket in Bournemouth.

When interviewed, Wall provided a prepared statement, claiming he was attacked by the woman with a pair of scissors and he had used reasonable force to defend himself.

He made no comment in two other interviews and refused to answer questions in relation to his relationship with his niece.

Neil Devoto, of Dorset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team, said: 'Christopher Wall's violent actions on that night have resulted in the tragic loss of a young woman's life.

'I hope the jury's verdict will bring some sense of comfort to Hayley's family.'

Wall, of Shelbourne Road, Bournemouth, was convicted today following a 12-day trial at Winchester Crown Court. He will be sentenced tomorrow. 

Slumped and stupefied in busy town centres, the Spice addicts in these photographs provide graphic proof of the drug's dehumanising effects.

One is doubled over, frozen on the pavement with his head drooped and arms hanging limply, while others lie comatose on the ground as commuters and tourists pass by.

The latest city to be affected is Lincoln, where Spice users were pictured collapsed and covered in vomit on shop floors and in parks. One sat in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a public phone box.

Business owners in Lincoln said addicts walked around like zombies, pestering customers, shouting abuse and begging for change.

Debra Swain, who runs the Riverside Cafe, said: 'It is like watching The Walking Dead.

'I get here at 5am when it is pitch black. I am a just a woman on my own. It can be intimidating. Sometimes I lock myself in.'

The Mail has spent months visiting the worst affected areas.

In Manchester, reporters spoke to Ryan, a homeless man on a busy pavement who was lighting up a pipe filled with tobacco and Spice. Moments later, he was sweating, incoherent and barely able to move. Aged just 24, he looked ten years older, his face sunken.

The once aspiring motorcycle mechanic has taken Spice daily for two years, adding: 'It puts you to sleep. It helps you forget about your situation. I was on weed, but this is easier to get hold of and cheaper.'

For just £5, users can buy a small bag of Spice. For £10 more, they can buy a 'ball' as large as an orange that can last more than a week.

Despite originally being peddled as an alternative to cannabis, the effects of Spice are different and wildly unpredictable.

Users hallucinate, sweat profusely and their limbs refuse to move as they overheat. It can cause liver failure, kidney failure and death. The zombie-like effects are believed to last for ten to 30 minutes before users regain lucidity.

They can then fall back into a stupor within minutes. Other side-effects such as paranoia and dizziness can last for up to eight hours. In Charing Cross, central London, tourists looked on in horror as a man on Spice stood in one spot for ten minutes while doubled over. He then walked 50 yards before freezing again and could not respond coherently to offers of help.

In Birmingham, users Leon and Ray rolled the drug with tobacco into joints. Within moments, Leon could do no more than stare glassy-eyed into the middle distance.

Leanne, who is homeless, said she became hooked after accepting a cigarette. Unknown to her, it had been dipped in the drug.  'It made me black out and I don't remember much,' she said. 'But that is why I still take it – because it helps me forget.

'Now I can't get off it. I'm not normal unless I take it because I'm so addicted, I have the shakes, I start sweating and throwing up, but as soon as I have a drag I'm fine.'

Experts claim Spice is sold to the homeless, addicts and those with mental health issues because they are less likely to be scared of the dangerous side-effects. It comes in up to 100 chemical variations, making the effects of each batch completely unpredictable.

A new law banning legal highs in the UK appears to be in crisis already after two major cases collapsed when judges agreed 'hippy crack' is not illegal.

Hundreds have been arrested and 50 dealers prosecuted and even jailed under the Psychoactive Substances Act since it came into force in May 2016.

Sellers of 'hippy crack' for recreational use were warned they faced up to seven years in prison under a Government crackdown on legal highs.

But now two trials involving the supply of 'hippy crack' at music festivals have ended abruptly after it was argued the drug is exempt from new legislation.

Even the Crown Prosecution Service's own top witness admitted that nitrous oxide is exempt under the act's 'current wording', which could lead to cases being axed, convictions quashed and people released from jail, experts have said. Ryan Egan and Kenan Buckley, who are in their twenties, were both arrested after carrying nitrous oxide into Glastonbury last year and charged with one count each of possession of a psychoactive substance with intent to supply.

But their defence QCs said that the laughing gas cannot be counted as a 'psychoactive substance' and Judge Paul Garlick greed and threw out the cases at ring the hearing at Taunton Crown Court. Southwark Crown Court where a defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was accused of intending to supply nitrous oxide at a music festival in Derbyshire also collapsed.

Prosecutor Adrian Fleming admitted expert witness Professor Philip Cowen has 'the firm view that nitrous oxide, as the legislation is currently worded, is an exempt substance'.

Mr Fleming also said the CPS had told him the situation demanded 'a full review of the legislation and that will be carried out'. 

Drug charity Release says the cases prove the new law is 'fundamentally flawed' and has called for all cases to be reviewed.

Kirstie Douse, head of legal services, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It's something that we've warned about and this is now wasted resources.

‘These are two defendants who've had the confidence to challenge the law. But there’s plenty of people who've gone before that – I think around 50 people have been prosecuted for supplying nitrous oxide.

‘We think that those previous prosecutions and convictions need to be reviewed as well.

'I don’t know the reasons why those previous people were convicted – they may have pleaded guilty for fear of getting a custodial sentence; there may have been some kind of bargaining going on there.

‘I would certainly urge anyone who has been affected by specifically the nitrous oxide part of the legislation and other parts to contact their solicitors for further legal advice. Former deputy drugs tsar Mike Trace told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘If legal challenge succeeds against a carefully drafted act, then that's going to put the cat amongst the pigeons somewhat.

'Some of this was foreseen. When the act was passed last year, Release and many other charities were saying there were certain definitions in the act that would be open to challenge – this is just one of them.

‘To my knowledge this is the first successful challenge, but there may be more problems to come.

‘The Government over the last couple of years were right to try and think how they can get around this conundrum of trying to pass a law for each individual drug, or a schedule, so trying to make much broader definitions.

‘But it was obvious that if you come to those much broader definitions and say everything is controlled or prohibited, then there are going to be some very difficult definitional issues. 

'For drugs to be included under this act, the law has to prove they have a psychoactive effect on humans. And for the vast majority of drugs circulating out there, there's no research to show that, so there are going to be some challenges.’

In July last year, William Cook, 29, became one of the first people in Britain convicted under the new law. 

He was jailed for 42 months after admitting possessing nitrous oxide with intent to supply at the Electric Daisy Carnival in Milton Keynes. 

And just eight days ago a geography student became one of the first people to be sentenced under new laws for peddling bag full of potentially fatal 'hippy crack' at a festival.

Nicholas Chroussis was charged with possession of the legal but pyschoactive drug after being found with almost 250 nitrous oxide canisters, a dispenser and 250 balloons, police said.

When Sussex Police revealed text messages on his phone that showed that he was planning on selling the cannisters to other festival goers, he admitted the offence.

A 23-year-old woman has been unable to urinate for three years after being struck down by a bizarre condition.

Vikki Black, from Barrow-in-Furness, suffers from Fowler's syndrome, also known as urine retention. It leaves her bladder muscles unable to relax. 

While most people take popping to the toilets for granted, she constantly thinks about it – because she simply cannot.

Miss Black, who has been unable to go to the toilet naturally since October 2014, initially thought she was suffering from a bout of cystitis.

She is now hoping to undergo pioneering surgery to have tiny electrical pulses implanted on her tail bone to trigger the nerves which work her bladder. 

Opening up about her struggle to urinate for the first time, Miss Black said: 'It’s changed my life so much. 'I’m in and out of hospital and can’t do something as simple as wee. [Surgery] is my last hope. I’m desperate to go to the loo.' 

The problems started back in late 2014, when the environmental health engineer began struggling to urinate.

Over the course of a few days, her symptoms worsened until eventually, she couldn’t go to the toilet at all.

On top of this, her stomach swelled dramatically. She said that she looked '20 weeks pregnant'. Miss Black added: 'I was bursting. I knew I needed to go, I just couldn’t.' Her father, Steve, 52, raced her to the nearby Furness General Hospital. She was given an emergency catheter to drain away 1200mls of urine.  

Doctors told her that the bladder is only designed to hold a maximum amount of around 500ml urine. 

The relief was immediate, and Miss Black was hopeful she’d been cured. But the next day, her stomach swelled once again.

She returned to the same hospital where another catheter was fitted for what she thought would be three months - but three years on it remains intact. Once a patient’s bladder is full, they are asked to pass urine with the catheters in, allowing doctors to gather information on what pressure the bladder muscle generates for a urine flow rate.

It was this procedure that led to her official diagnosis of Fowler’s Syndrome, a condition only described 30 years ago, in late 2015.

The condition, which typically affects women aged in their 20s to 40s, can occur as a result of an operation, or even spontaneously.

Miss Black said: 'It’s so rare that often, when I visit the doctors or hospital, people haven’t heard of it. But it has a huge impact.

'Because of the catheter, I’ve had a lot of kidney infections. I’ve probably suffered around 90 infections and been in and out of hospital.

'Just last week I was in Salford Royal Infirmary with another infection. I was given intravenous antibiotics.' 

Now, Miss Black is hoping to have a type of surgery called sacral nerve stimulation, which is available on the NHS.

However, she said she’d prefer to have it done privately so that she can avoid the waiting list for the operation.

The procedure involves small electrical pulses stimulating the nerves in the lower back, just above the tail bone, which affect bladder control. 

Dennis Rodman is praising North Korean dictator Kim Jong for 'modernizing' the country despite the volatile leader's nuclear threats to the U.S.

The former basketball star is known for making several trips to the controversial country and even becoming friends with Kim, who became 'Supreme Leader' in 2011.

Rodman told Dujor magazine  that Kim has done a great deal since coming to power to bring the Asian country into the 21st century.

'He is changing North Korea so much it is really becoming a 24th century country now,' he said. 

'It's more like they took down the "Flintstone" age and put in the "Jetsons". Out with the old, in with the new,' referencing the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoons take place in the Stone Age and the future, respectively. 

Rodman insists, however, that although he is an American celebrity, the same doesn't apply in Pyongyang.

'You think you're a famous athlete over here. But you feel really small when you go over there. People don't even know you,' he said.

'You think that you're cool in America, that you can go anywhere and people recognize you, want your autograph and pictures. You go over there, and they just walk right past you. Rodman has had a very unique relationship with North Korea for years, ever since Kim - who is reportedly obsessed with the team the Chicago Bulls - wanted to meet the former member.

Rodman has visited the country six times since 2013 and appears to be very close with Kim, who holds the title of Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The Hall of Famer also stated that Kim is a true innovator.

'It's funny, because when I first went there it was so…Communist,' Rodman said.

'Dry and dreary and like, I don't know. Everything is so dead.

'But the third time I went there, wow. [Pyongyang] changed a lot. New buildings were popping up and [Kim] is building all these new condos and hotels.

'He built the largest water park in the world, a ski resort and this big bowling alley. He's doing everything for these people. You could go bowl for a quarter all day or go swimming all day for like 50 cents. Despite Rodman trying to portray a more human Kim, many can't help but wonder how true it is, especially given reports of the despot's cruel and unusual punishments. 

In 2013, Kim Jong-un’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, was accused of being a counter-revolutionary, and was arrested and executed firing squad style.

It was a dramatic fall for a man who was once considered Kim's top adviser.

Such brutal purges of top officials have been a key strategy the leadership uses to keep a handle on power.

Satellite-images have also discovered North Korean's prison-camp system - where as many as 120,000 men, women and children are held.

Prisoners are often subjected to forced labor, torture, starvation, rape and death - although Pyongyang denies that the camps even exist.