• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Three Earth-like Planets Discovered Orbiting Dwarf Star

mbig

onomatopoeic
DP Veteran
Joined
May 14, 2009
Messages
10,350
Reaction score
4,989
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Other
A whole new category of star in which to look for 'Goldilocks' zone planets.
This system a fairly close 40 ly.

Three Earth-like planets discovered orbiting dwarf star - CNN.com
By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Mon May 2, 2016
(Artist Renderings at link)

For the first time, researchers have discovered three potentially habitable, Earth-like worlds orbiting an ultracool dwarf star 40 light-years away in another star system, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

The ultracool dwarf star, known as TRAPPIST-1, isn't the kind of star scientists expected to be a hub for planets. It's at the end of the range for what classifies as a star: half the temperature and a tenth the mass of the sun. TRAPPIST-1 is red, barely larger than Jupiter and too dim to be seen with the naked eye or even amateur telescopes from Earth.

But these tiny stars, along with brown dwarfs, are long-lived, common in the Milky Way and represent 25-50% of stellar objects in the galaxy, said study researcher Julien de Wit, a postdoctoral associate with MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. They were largely overlooked until researcher Michaël Gillon of the University of Liège in Belgium decided to take a risk and study the space around one of these dwarves. It paid off. Over the course of 62 nights from September to December 2015, researchers led by Gillon used a telescope, also called TRAPPIST (transiting planets and planetesimals small telescope), to observe its starlight and changes in brightness. The team saw shadows, like little eclipses, periodically interrupting the steady pattern of starlight. Using a telescope that can detect infrared light added an advantage that visible light camera programs don't provide.
[.......]
The planets are about the size of Earth and given the proximity of two of them to the dwarf star, they receive about four times the amount of radiation than we do from the sun, which suggests they are in the "habitable zone." According to Burgasser, the "habitable zone," determines how close a planet is to the star that it orbits and given the temperature of the planet based on that proximity, it could have water on the surface. This core ingredient for life as we know it also suggests there could be an atmosphere and habitable regions on the planets themselves. Less is known about the third outer planet, which receives twice the amount of radiation that Earth does, but it is potentially in the habitable zone as well.
[.......]
 
Last edited:
Given their long lifespans, stars like this one could actually be the norm for having life on planets, rather than our environment. (We reasonably expect) complex life needs a pretty stable environment for a long period to develop. And a smaller star might have fewer large objects caught within its gravitational pull, meaning lower odds of those objects smacking into each other. (which tends to set the clock back, as our friends the dinosaurs discovered)
 
Great point Deuce.
Goldilocks scenarios may be more common, at least percentage-wise, among the Dwarfs than 'normal' size star systems. Much is made of our moon, etc, running interference for us, but with these smaller situations, there's less need for it.
IMO, pretty big development in the ET search, as the Dwarfs may contain most of the high-odds life bodies.
Though because they are small, they may be harder to detect, especially at greater distance.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom