(ORDO NEWS) — Red dwarfs, dimmer than our Sun, appear to be quiet stars, but astronomers warn that these stars are much wilder and more unpredictable, and therefore less suitable for the development of life on the planets orbiting them.
The Sun warming the Earth belongs to the category of yellow dwarfs, therefore, dimmer red dwarfs, it would seem, should be even calmer and more reliable than our star.
However, astronomers who observe them for long periods think otherwise: periods of calm in red dwarfs are replaced by bright flashes that can potentially burn out all life on nearby planets.
However, this is not all the “surprises” that red dwarfs hide: after studying the behavior of 177 such stars from 2003 to 2020, an international team of researchers from France, Switzerland, Portugal and Chile came to the conclusion that even the calmest red dwarfs are much more unpredictable. than our sun.
All stars are variable to some extent: for example, the Sun follows an 11-year cycle during which the number of sunspots on the surface of our star increases and decreases.
It takes billions of years for planets around a star to form a complete biosphere, which is why astronomers are interested in long-term observations of individual stars to assess their suitability for supporting life.
Using a spectrograph, after studying the chromospheric radiation and analyzing the photometric characteristics of red dwarfs, scientists found that the variability in the activity of even the calmest red dwarfs is much higher than the solar one, and the duration of stellar cycles ranges from several years to a couple of decades and more.
However, even one powerful flash once every million years – as, for example, happened in 2017 with Proxima Centauri, our closest stellar neighbor – is enough to exclude the possibility of the existence of life or even liquid water on the nearest planets.
In other words, astronomers conclude in a study that even systems of well-studied red dwarfs such as TRAPPIST-1, around which at least three planets in the habitable zone revolve, may not be habitable.
Of course, this does not exclude the possibility of their colonization, but it is still unlikely that earthlings will ever discover a planet near a red dwarf, the development of life on which will go beyond the stage of unicellular creatures.
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