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Can Planets Orbiting Red Dwarf Stars be Habitable?

What astronomers call red dwarf stars are small, dim reddish stars with spectral types ranging from K5V to M5V and these type of stars are the most numerous in our galaxy.  These stars are relatively cool and burn all of their hydrogen up and have very long lives, as long as trillions of years.  Several of these red dwarfs have been discovered to have planets orbiting them.  The question is, can any planets orbiting such small, cool stars sustain life? There have been studies made that say that earth-sized planets orbiting these stars are tidally locked meaning that one side is always facing the star and absorbing all the heat while the back side is always dark and cold. There are also reports that red dwarf stars emit frequent bursts of UV radiation which could sterilize any life on planets orbiting them.  On the other hand, as red dwarfs age, they become less active in sending out radiation and planets orbiting them could survive if they were able to retain their atmosphere or maybe had strong magnetic fields to protect them.  Therefore if that’s the case, planets orbiting red dwarf stars could very well be habitable.  For more information on red dwarfs and their planets, there are a couple of good websites to look at: 1. Living with a Red Dwarf – https://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/living-with-a-red-dwarf/  2. Red Dwarf Stars and the Planets Around Them – https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/red-dwarf-stars-and-the-planets-around-them-2/

 

Images

1.      Spitzer Studies a Stellar Playground with a Long History – December 19, 2019 – A great image taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope that shows the Perseus Molecular Cloud which stretches some 500 million light-years across and is home to many developing young stars .  To see this image and read more about it, see the NASA/JPL news report at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7564

2.      Clouds Up Close – December 5, 2019 - NASA’s Juno spacecraft took close-up images on November 3, 2019 of Jupiter’s northern hemisphere showing a band of swirling clouds.  To read more about these images and to see them as well, go to NASA’s JPL website at: https://wwwjpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA23442

3.      Hubble Views a Galaxy with an Active Center – December 27, 2019 – An image taken by the NASA/ESO Hubble Space Telescope shows a spiral galaxy called ESO 021-G004 that is located about 130 light-years from Earth.  This galaxy has what is called an active galactic nucleus which means it gives off a lot of radiation in all wave lengths from its center.  To see the image of this galaxy, go to: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2019/hubble-views-a-galaxy-with-an-active-center

4.      NASA Image of the Day – A NASA website that provides space images, videos and news from this country’s space agency.  To see this website, go to: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

5. NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Snaps Its Highest-Resolution Panorama Yet - March 4, 2020 - A great composite image containing 1.8 billion pixels of the Martian surface.  To see this stunning image, go to https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7610

6.      Hubble Marks 30 Years in Space with Tapestry of Blazing Starbirth – April 24, 2020 – Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope which was launched on April 24, 1990 is celebrating its 30 years in space by providing a brilliant image of a star-forming region in a neighboring satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud. To see this image, go to: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/hubble-marks-30-years-in-space-with-tapestry-of-blazing-starbirth/

7.      This is an Actual Image of a Planet Forming Disc in a Distant Star System – May 25, 2020 – A few years ago in 2017 scientists using the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/Sub-millimeter Array) in northern Chile looked at a young star called AB Aurigae and found a dusty protoplanetary disc around it.  They have now taken another look and found a young planet forming there as well.  To see the image and to read the article about this finding, go to the Universe Today.com website at: https://www.universetoday.com/146180/this-is-an-actual-image-of-a-planet-forming-disc-in-a-distant-star-system/#more-146180     

8.       The First Ever Image of a Multi-planet System Around a Sun-like Star Captured by ESO Telescope – July 22, 2020 – The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope located in northern Chile has taken the first ever image of a sun-like star with two giant exoplanets orbiting it. The star is known as TYC8998-760-1 and is located 300 light-years from Earth.  To see this image and story about the star system, see the Science Daily.com news report at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200722093501.htm