Red dwarf stars might be best places to discover alien life

Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the universe, and nearly every one of these stars may have a planet located in its habitable zone where life has the best chance of existing, a new study concludes.

The Drake Equation revisited: An interview with Sara Seager

Planet hunters keep finding distant worlds that bear a resemblance to Earth. Some of the thousands of exoplanet candidates discovered to date have similar sizes or temperatures. Others possess rocky surfaces and support atmospheres. ...

Cloud behavior expands habitable zone of alien planets

A new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of stars in the universe. This finding means that in the ...

First transiting planets in a star cluster discovered

(Phys.org) —All stars begin their lives in groups. Most stars, including our Sun, are born in small, benign groups that quickly fall apart. Others form in huge, dense swarms that survive for billions of years as stellar ...

New method of finding planets scores its first discovery

(Phys.org) —Detecting alien worlds presents a significant challenge since they are small, faint, and close to their stars. The two most prolific techniques for finding exoplanets are radial velocity (looking for wobbling ...

Eyeball earths

Alien worlds resembling giant eyeballs might exist around red dwarf stars, and researchers are now proposing experiments to simulate these distant planets and see how capable they are of supporting life.

Is there really any life 'out there'?

Mankind should not assume that it will definitely find life on alien planets according to a hypothesis being presented at the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, this week. Professor Charles Cockell, Director ...

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