In ‘Habitable Exoplanets: Red Dwarf Systems Like TRAPPIST-1’, you will discover in a short and comprehensive read the chance of exoplanets being habitable around the most abundant type of star in the Universe – red dwarfs. You will also get a peek into the wildly different environments of these strange worlds with features unlike anything we experience here on Earth.
A common misconception is that our own star type, G-class, is the most common type and size of star. This is far from reality. Red Dwarfs (comprising of both late K-type and all M-type) are at least 70% of all stars in the Milky Way galaxy. While life has been located around our own star type (as we are here to talk about that revelation), it would be shortsighted to ignore the vast majority stars because we have assumptions about how inhospitable they may be for life — assumptions that are quickly being overturned.
The Book’s Chapters:
- The First Exoplanets
- Introducing Red Dwarf Stars
- Surprise! Red Dwarfs Host Planets Too
- Making a Red Dwarf Planet Habitable
- A Star’s Temperament
- A Planet’s Shielding
- A Delicate Balance
- Introducing Tidally Locked Worlds
- Civilization on a Tidally Locked World
- A New Generation of Telescopes
- Summary: Finding Red Dwarf Worlds
A Quick Checklist on Red Dwarf Exoplanet Habitability
- Is the star past its early years of active flaring?
- Does the planet have a magnetic field of any kind?
- Does the planet have an atmosphere?
- Is there any kind of atmospheric recycling occurring?
- Does the planet have liquid water on its surface?
- And for the support of technological civilizations, does the planet have between 10-40% land coverage?
Promising Habitable Planet Candidates:
- (Ranked in order from the Earth Similarity Index (ESI) where 1.0 is deemed at least as habitable as Earth. For reference, Mars is at 0.797.)
- Proxima Cen b (0.85)
- TRAPPIST-1 e (0.85)
- GJ 667 C c (0.84)
- Kepler-442 b (0.84)