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Experts have found that the habitable zone of red dwarf stars is exposed to deadly radiation, making life on other planets less likely than previously thought.
Astronomers at the University of Sydney observed solar flares and radio bursts from the nearby star Centauri, or Proxima Centauri, to study the effect on the planets in their system.
And the red dwarf star is our closest neighbor to the stars, about 4.2 light years away, with an Earth-sized rocky planet called Proxima b within its habitable zone, indicating that it may flow. liquid water and the planet support life.
Since it is a colder star than the Sun, the habitable zone is closer. New research revealed that nearby planets are bombarded with deadly solar radiation, making life unbearable.
Red dwarf stars are the most common in the Milky Way, accounting for about 85% of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy, compared to 7% of sun-like stars.
Life is unlikely to form on the planets orbiting these plentiful but tiny stars, though this still leaves billions of sun-like stars that could have host worlds for life.
Australian researchers created the first weather forecast for our closest celestial neighbor to better understand the effect of a close orbit on the chances of life.
Unfortunately, the Proxima Centauri reports do not promise to “find life as we know it.” It would exclude the habitable areas closest to Earth, which would be around stars much smaller than the sun.
“Astronomers recently discovered that there are two rocky Earth-like planets around Proxima Centauri, one of them within the habitable zone, where any water can be in liquid form,” said study leader Dr. Andrew Zick, from Macquarie University in Sydney.
He added: “Since Proxima Centauri is a small cool red dwarf star, this means that this habitable region is very close to the star, that is, much closer than Mercury to our sun. What our research shows is that this makes planets extremely vulnerable to dangerous ionizing radiation that can effectively sterilize them.
“It appears that the most common stars in the galaxy, the red dwarfs, will not be good places to find life as we know it,” Dr. Zick said, according to the “Daily Mail.”
