Is it possible to place an Earth-sized planet around an M-dwarf star? M dwarfs are the most numerous stars we know.
An astronomer found an answer to a question about the planet GJ 1252b.
This planet gets a lot of heat because it's so close to its star. That proximity is deadly in other ways.
The star's radiation is enough to blow a planet's atmosphere away.
The planet is 65 light-years from Earth and travels around its star twice a day. This world is rendered inhospitable by the star's heat.
This is not very different from Mercury. The planet is heated and frozen as it moves through the solar system. Earth loses a little atmosphere to the sun.
Volcanism and other processes release gasses into the atmosphere. Mercury and GJ 1252b are not fortunate. That affects the search for life-friendly worlds.
There are many M dwarf stars in our universe. The sizes range from a tenth to two-thirds of the Sun's mass. Flares can be sent through their system. The majority of people have at least one planet that is in the right place.
If you want to find life on their planets, that isn't a good combo. Any chance for life on those worlds is destroyed by the stellar activity.
There are so many M dwarfs that their ubiquity may undermine the number of planets that support life. That doesn't bode well for planets like GJ 1252b.
This planet's condition could be a bad sign for planets further away from this type of star.
It's something we'll learn from the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be looking at planets like these.
It's not all doom and gloom even though M dwarfs can be atmosphere killers.
Many of the stars on Earth are M dwarfs. Even if a large portion of them blast their planets into uninhabitability, at least 1000 others could foster conditions suitable for life on their worlds.
If a planet is close to an M dwarf, it might retain an atmosphere. We don't know if rocky planets around these stars get reduced to Mercury's fate.
I'm still optimistic.
The situation at GJ 1252b is interesting. The data from the space telescope was used to assess the radiation from the planet.
The star blew the planet apart. The daytime surface temperature is 1,224 degrees Celsius. It's hot enough to melt metals.
Researchers believed there was no atmosphere because of the heat and low surface pressure. Let's assume for a second that there was a carbon dioxide atmosphere. It would allow that blanket to exist for a while.
GJ 1252b is not so lucky.
It wouldn't have an atmosphere if the planet had 700 times as much carbon as Earth. Stephen Kane is an astronomer and study co-author.
If this study is correct, it will shift the search for planets around less-volatile stars.
This article was published in the past. The original article is worth a read.
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