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staaaaaaars
Aug. 25th, 2016 12:28 pmIf you're at all like me, you already know that scientists have discovered a rocky, Earth-sized planet around Proxima Centauri, but I had to scream about it some more.
THESE ARE THE STARS I WAS TALKING ABOUT.
Cool red stars like Proxima Centauri are by far the most common, but of course also difficult to see. And it turns out that they tend to have planets!!
It’s awesome, because—okay, since our sample of life-supporting planets = 1, we’ve had to sort of fumble around with “well, this is what we have, and it works, soooo.” So we’ve tended to look for hulking stars like our sun, which is a pretty rare type. People thought for awhile that red dwarfs would be too cold and weird (aka not weird enough), but it’s turned out that they do have habitable zones and might be the best place to look for Earth-like planets. And they’re E V E R Y W H E R E. Proxima b is in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri :D
Ofc, that habitable zone requires an orbit much nearer to its chilly star (apparently Proxima b orbits at 5% of the distance that the Earth does), which makes lots of things very different. It completes its much shorter orbit at ~11 days, is tide-locked, and probably gets blasted by radiation (red dwarfs tend to be tempestuous, but Proxima Centauri is pretty chill by M-type standards). On average the temperature would be ~-40 F (brr) but not if it has a good atmosphere with water, which it may or may not. It’s in a kind of odd location without much materials for formation (esp as it’s at least a bit more massive than Earth), so if it formed further out, it probably would have water, but if it formed where it is, it’s likely very dry.
And all of this is right here—I mean, Proxima is still too far to actually travel to, but it is literally the nearest star in the UNIVERSE. What are the odds??
(Maybe pretty good, idk. BUT IT’S AWESOME.)
THESE ARE THE STARS I WAS TALKING ABOUT.
Cool red stars like Proxima Centauri are by far the most common, but of course also difficult to see. And it turns out that they tend to have planets!!
It’s awesome, because—okay, since our sample of life-supporting planets = 1, we’ve had to sort of fumble around with “well, this is what we have, and it works, soooo.” So we’ve tended to look for hulking stars like our sun, which is a pretty rare type. People thought for awhile that red dwarfs would be too cold and weird (aka not weird enough), but it’s turned out that they do have habitable zones and might be the best place to look for Earth-like planets. And they’re E V E R Y W H E R E. Proxima b is in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri :D
Ofc, that habitable zone requires an orbit much nearer to its chilly star (apparently Proxima b orbits at 5% of the distance that the Earth does), which makes lots of things very different. It completes its much shorter orbit at ~11 days, is tide-locked, and probably gets blasted by radiation (red dwarfs tend to be tempestuous, but Proxima Centauri is pretty chill by M-type standards). On average the temperature would be ~-40 F (brr) but not if it has a good atmosphere with water, which it may or may not. It’s in a kind of odd location without much materials for formation (esp as it’s at least a bit more massive than Earth), so if it formed further out, it probably would have water, but if it formed where it is, it’s likely very dry.
And all of this is right here—I mean, Proxima is still too far to actually travel to, but it is literally the nearest star in the UNIVERSE. What are the odds??
(Maybe pretty good, idk. BUT IT’S AWESOME.)
