Complex life might require a very narrow habitable zone

Since the Kepler Space Telescope was launched into space, the number of known planets beyond the solar system (exoplanets) has grown exponentially. At present, 3,917 planets have been confirmed in 2,918 star systems, while ...

Young planets orbiting red dwarfs may lack ingredients for life

Rocky planets orbiting red dwarf stars may be bone dry and lifeless, according to a new study using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Water and organic compounds, essential for life as we know it, may get blown away before they ...

A super-Earth found in our stellar back yard

The potential discovery of a planet orbiting Barnard's Star – the second closest stellar system to the sun – was announced by researchers today in Nature.

Superflares from young red dwarf stars imperil planets

The word "HAZMAT" describes substances that pose a risk to the environment, or even to life itself. Imagine the term being applied to entire planets, where violent flares from the host star may make worlds uninhabitable by ...

Astronomers catch red dwarf star in a superflare outburst

New observations by two Arizona State University astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have caught a red dwarf star in a violent outburst, or superflare. The blast of radiation was more powerful than any such outburst ...

Researchers discover thin gap on stellar family portrait

A thin gap has been discovered on the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram (HRD), the most fundamental of all maps in stellar astronomy, a finding that provides new information about the interior structures of low mass stars in the ...

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