Whoops, wrong red dwarf.
Posted on 06/08/2017 7:00:14 AM PDT by BenLurkin
While small, cool, and relatively dim compared to our Sun, red dwarf star systems are where many of the most recent and promising exoplanet finds have been made. These include Proxima b, the seven rocky planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, and the super-Earth discovered around LHS 1140b.
Unfortunately, red dwarf stars pose a bit of a problem when it comes to habitability. In addition to being variable in terms of the light they put out, they also known for being unstable. According to a new study by a team of scientists – which was presented the this week at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society – red dwarfs also experience mini-flares that could have a cumulative effect, thus rendering their orbiting planets uninhabitable.
For the sake of their study, titled “gPhoton: The GALEX Photon Data Archive“, the team relied on the ten years of ultraviolet observations made by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) spacecraft. During its mission, which ran from 2003 to 2013, GALEX monitored stars to detect rapid increases in brightness – i.e. signs of solar flare activity. These flares emit radiation across many wavelengths, but a significant amount is released in the UV band.
...
While many of the flares that GALEX noticed were similar in strength to those generated by our Sun, the dynamics of red dwarf star systems are quite different. Since they are cooler and less bright, rocky planets need to orbit closer to red dwarfs in order to be warm enough to maintain liquid water on their surfaces (i.e. be habitable). This proximity means that they would be subject to more of the energy produced by these flares.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
They’re all dead, Jim.....................
I hate when a red dwarf flares my habitat.
Krypton orbited a red sun and we all know what happened to it!..............................
ok, who let the red dwarf have a phaser???
She flared my habitat.
Don’t crush that Red dwarf, hand
me the pliers!
Every time I hear one of these scumbag libtards spout off on TV, I start to wish OUR sun would turn into a red dwarf and put us all out of our misery.
This story is BS.
Keep Calm
And Blast Your Planets
with Mini-Flares,
Destroying their Habitability
May it be the shadow’s call
will fly away.
May it be you journey on
to light the day.
When the night is overcome
you may rise to find the sun.
(Darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way.
(Darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y_R7CBmDAE
So a planet relying on unstable red dwarfs is like a conservative relying on Republicans, huh?
Here ya go. May I watch???
Mornië alantië.
High School Madness, with Porgy and Mudhead!
More likely it will go red giant, but that’s 4 billion years away.
The “habitable zone” for a planet orbiting a red dwarf may be closer than Mercury is to our sun. And like Mercury the planet’s rotation around its axis would likely be phase-locked to its orbit, leaving one side in continual darkness and the other side in continual sunlight, blasted by red dwarf flares.
These factors and many others suggest that, with all the planets associated with the billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, the estimated probable number of planets with Earth-like conditions hospitable to intelligent life is likely very close to the experimentally known value of one.
Whoops, wrong red dwarf.
I agree with you. I think that in the hundreds of billions of galaxies in the visible universe, that the average number of planets with a fully developed intelligent species such as ours (yes, I know, we have muslims and democrats, but even still, I think we qualify) is 1 per galaxy.
That’s my guess.
Probably 90% of the participants go there on government money where they hear boring lectures from 9-5 and then party till midnight or after.
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