5 New theoretical considerations and their impact on M-dwarf planet habitability It was once believed that life could not survive on a planet orbiting an M-dwarf star. The environment would be too different from that of the Earth around the Sun given the harsh stellar radiation, short orbital...
However, for close-in planets that possess high Keplerian velocities and are frequently located at regions where the host star's wind is still accelerating, a shock may develop ahead of the planet. If the compressed material is able to absorb stellar radiation, then the signature of bow ...
M-dwarfs, can support liquid water and eventually life. A new study shows that subglacial melting may provide an answer, significantly extending the habitability region, in particular around M-dwarf stars, which are also the most promising for biosignature detection with the present and...
Mamajek, E. E.Girard, J. H.Astronomy & AstrophysicsLacour, S., Biller, B., Cheetham, A., et al., An M-dwarf star in the transition disk of Herbig HD 142527. Physical parameters and orbital elements. 2016, A&A, 590, A90
"This means the width of the habitable zone around M-dwarf stars is not as wide as previously thought." Artist's impression of a M-dwarf star surrounded by planets. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Kopparapu said his team took into account Kepler's third law of motion, which is a ...
One of the most interesting features in M dwarfs is their close-in habitable zone, which is defined as the extended area away from the star where an orbiting planet could have liquid water on its surface (Kasting, Whitmire & Reynolds 1993; Selsis et al. 2007). Because M dwarf stars ...
The Hubble Space Telescope image on the left is an edge-on view of a portion of a vast debris disk around the young, nearby red dwarf star AU Microscopii (AU Mic), where several "blobs" of material could be "snowplowing" remaining debris out of the system and limiting habitability of ...
An artist’s impression of the surface of the planet Proxima Cen b orbiting the M dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image. Astronomers have begun a program to model the stellar winds and magnetic field ...
In the case of the first Earth-sized planets observed to transit an M dwarf, the authors employed a proxy star of the same spectral type with directly-measured properties [114]. Ultimately, distance measurements to nearby M dwarfs will reduce the systematic error on their radii and refine ...
Our tomographic imaging technique applied to time series of rotationally modulated circularly polarized profiles reveals an axisymmetric large-scale poloidal magnetic field on the M4 dwarf. We then apply a synthetic spectrum fitting technique for measuring the average magnetic flux on the star. The ...