Kepler: Many Red Dwarfs Have Earth-SIzed Planets Too

astroengine writes "Extrapolating from findings by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope, scientists on Wednesday said roughly six percent of so-called red dwarf stars have Earth-sized planets properly positioned around their parent stars so that liquid water could exist on their surfaces. The team looked at 95 candidate planets circling red dwarf stars observed by Kepler and found that at least 60 percent have planets smaller than Neptune. Most were not the right size or temperature to be Earth-like, but three were found to be both warm and approximately Earth-sized. Statistically that would mean six percent of all red dwarf stars should have a Earth-sized planet. Since 75 percent of the closest stars are red dwarfs, the nearest Earth-like world may be just 13 light-years away."

Comments

14 LY from earth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to nerd out but wouldn't that make it Vulcan?

Re:14 LY from earth?

[luxifr]

Vulcan is supposed to be in the 40-Eridani-System, which is about 16LY away from us and it's a trinary system. But scientists think that it may host a habitable planet :)

So not all is lost ^^

Re:14 LY from earth?

[mcgrew]

Vulcan circles a red dwarf? Wikipedia says nothing about the planet or its star, just about the Vulcans themselves. I was thinking Krypton, even though I haven't read a Superman comic since I was 7 or 8; it orbits a red star.

I'm always amused by "only n light years away" in every story about a newly-found planet. Adams was right. "Space is big. I mean really big. You think it's a long way to the chemist..." the Voyagers have been traveling for 40 years and still haven't gotten past the heliopause. Even Adams was understating the vast distances between stars, try as he might to impress how big space is. Getting to Vulcan/Krypton is indeed infinitely improbable, at least for the next few hundred years and maybe never.

Depressing, isn't it?

Nice thing about red dwarf stars

[PvtVoid]

One attractive feature of red dwarf stars, it would seem to me, is that they have much longer lifetimes than sun-like stars. More time for complex life to evolve!

Re:Nice thing about red dwarf stars

[K. S. Kyosuke]

One attractive feature of red dwarf stars, it would seem to me, is that they have much longer lifetimes than sun-like stars. More time for complex life to evolve!

On the other hand, being (necessarily, due to temperature issues) much closer to their star, these planets are likely to be tidally locked, which is *not* a good thing for complex life trying to evolve.

Re:Nice thing about red dwarf stars

[arcctgx]

On the other hand, such stars have deeper convection zones which makes their magnetic dynamos much stronger than in the Sun. The resulting magnetic activity may manifest itself in very strong flares. If the magnetic field of the planet is not strong enough, such phenomena could adversely affect the evolution of complex life forms.

Re:Nice thing about red dwarf stars

[rgbatduke]

A tidally locked planet would have all of its atmosphere period precipitated out on the dark side. There would be no habitable band. The antipode opposite the sun would be open to space, cooling the surface there, essentially 100% of the time. There would be no factors driving global circulation -- the atmosphere would rapidly stratify (and get very hot indeed, stably, on the side facing the sun). Eventually, where by eventually I mean in a matter of a few days if one stopped the Earth from rotating without vaporizing it (can't be done, sure, I know) it get cold enough to first rain, then snow, the snow carbon dioxide, then the greenhouse effect disappears and the temperature really plummets, and in just a little bit more time you have a rain of oxygen and nitrogen followed (as they deplete the atmosphere by a fall of solid oxygen-nitrogen sleet). As fast as it falls out on the dark side, it is replenished from the warm side (cooling as it comes) until the warm side -- now bloody hot not unlike the lit side of the moon -- has almost no atmosphere at all. The dark side has a rather large mountain of frozen air centered fairly symmetrically on the solar antipode. There would probably be some residual partial pressure of gas, but it wouldn't be enough to keep your blood from boiling anywhere on the planet's surface.

If the atmosphere was a more exotic mix, you'd actually precipitate out the gases in layers, frozen methane in one layer, oxygen in another, hydrogen and helium on top of the whole mess at the end.

So "tidally locked" is indeed a fatal problem.

Re:Nice thing about red dwarf stars

[atrain728]

Oh and I'm wrong.

Re:Nice thing about red dwarf stars

[Dasher42]

What about moons orbiting gas giants in the habitable zone of red dwarves - any reason to pass that up?

Re:Nice thing about red dwarf stars

[HiThere]

That was the old theory. Currently, IIUC, it is only believed to apply if there is no atmosphere. If there is an atmosphere, its circulation redistributes the heat...though slowly enough that there is, indeed, a huge difference in temperatures between the day side and the night side. Naturally, exact details depend on the composition of the atmosphere. (If Venus were tidally locked, it wouldn't change much of anything.)

Now he has a planet, too?

[fyngyrz]

Many Red Dwarfs Have Earth-SIzed Planets Too

Are we talking about Korea's leader again?

The problem with Red Dwarf planets...

[SailorSpork]

...is that its cold outside, and there's no kind of atmosphere. You're all alone, more or less.

Re:The problem with Red Dwarf planets...

[tom17]

Well from what I understand, the reddish colour will result in goldfish shoals nibbling at your toes too.

But there is also fresh mango juice on offer, so there is that if it helps.