Originally published at: Star 15 light years away has two Earth-like planets | Boing Boing
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The good news: two temperate planets with Earthlike-mass orbit a red dwarf star “only” 15 light years away. The bad news: that close to their star—0.045 AUs
Calling an astrophysics major! “temperate/Earthlike planets” and “0.045 AU”? hell(fire), Mercury is an order of magnitude farther at ~0.4AU. (“maybe it’s like a really underachieving star?”)
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It is a red dwarf…
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We need to keep in mind that Venus and Mars are also “earthlike” and in the “inhabitable zone”…
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I’m not sure if I would call it underachieving when red dwarfs are the most common and longest lasting stars in the galaxy, but the paper gives it 0.0014 times the luminosity of the sun. So at that distance the planets receive less light than we do. It’s of a different sort though, mostly infrared and red light instead of white.
Anyway I think the neat part here is that they might be close enough to examine their atmospheres. Most exoplanets are still just invisible masses to us, but they have started being able to look at atmospheres of some of the giant ones. Being able to add terrestrial planets to that is exciting.
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If only there was a way to convince this guy to go there and do it personally…
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That star’s a hoarder. It happens later in life.
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/casually nudges box of Useful Wires out of view.
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But do they have any Unobtainium?
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They do, but you can’t get it.
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What?! It is unobtainable?! Shocking!
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"There might be life, Jim, but not as we know it "
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Capt James T Kirk straightens his jacket and checks his breath for sweetness, “It is a tough job, Bones, but someone has got to make “first contact” with the aliens.”
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