News

New Tiny Red Dwarf Star With 'Monstrous Temper' Can Help Scientists In Search For Hospitable Planets

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Nov 23, 2015 10:18 AM EST

The sun seems to be a calmer dude than other members of its family. However, scientists have found a tiny star with a "monstrous temper," according to HNGN.

This small star has more fierce solar flares than others in our solar system. The study can help us to to find out which exoplanets are livable, says the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"If we lived around a star like this one, we wouldn't have any satellite communications. In fact, it might be extremely difficult for life to evolve at all in such a stormy environment," said lead author Peter Williams of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

While the red-dwarf star is 35 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Boîtes, it is very small and cold, rotating once every two "earthly hours", while the sun takes a month to rotate. The star's magnetic field is several hundred times stronger than the sun's, which is a bit baffling, as it is so small---just one-tenth of the earth's mass.

This star could help us search for inhabitable planets outside the solar system. While these are the "most common type of star" in our galaxy, they are also very dim. A planet would have to orbit too closely to the star in order to be considered livable.

Hence, a red dwarf would not be able to host planets that have intelligent life.

"It's like living in Tornado Alley in the U.S. Your location puts you at greater risk of severe storms," Williams said.

The findings were published in a recent edition of The Astrophysical Journal.

© 2023 Counsel & Heal All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics