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no chances for life around red dwarfs

⁨248⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨fossilesque@mander.xyz⁩ to ⁨science_memes@mander.xyz⁩

https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/e156d990-01fd-46e2-9ef3-56ca3c8425c6.jpeg

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  • FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Red dwarf stars also flare more frequently than our Sun, unleashing waves of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation that is harmful to life as we know it. If the Sun can strip off Mars’ water and dense atmosphere from a huge distance, planets like Proxima b lying about 30 times closer to furiously flaring stars could lose their atmospheres in just a hundred million years. To make matters worse, such planets being tidally locked means their molten interiors likely churn slowly, generating feeble or no magnetic fields. This deprives the planets from the kind of radiation protection that is so effective here on Earth and contributes to its proliferation of life.

    In 2014, NASA’s Swift mission caught a red dwarf emitting a flare 10,000 times more powerful than any ever expelled by our Sun. Most newly born red dwarfs may emit such mega-flares, perhaps in revolt against us having judged them on size. The intense radiation from these mega-flares could prevent life from ever arising on nearby planets.

    Source:planetary.org

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    • Paragone@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Mere-ideas, but…

      1. there seem to be one hell of alot of the things, so therefore some must have captured rogue-planets, after they calmed-down…

      2. that would mean that the atmosphere-stripping might not be universal for all planets orbiting them, only for the planets that orbited them when they were young red-dwarfs…

      Being tidally-locked may mean that not having any Van Allen belts may be irrelevant: the radiation they’re being bombarded by is coming from their sun, & life could evolve on the opposite side, having warmth, & maybe photosynthesis at the daylight-horizon?

      1. Swift caught a red-dwarf emitting a flare 10k times more powreful than any we know about having been ejected by our Sun … but we’re looking at zillions of stars with our satellites, whereas we’ve only got a few decades of satellites watching our sun: there’s a measurement-disparity there, that is significant.

      2. universe has surprised ALL of our assumptions about it, through the millenia… & the ONE rule on Earth for where life is, is: IF life CAN exist in some niche, THEN it does. Period.

      Stratospheric bacteria with error-correcting-code DNA ( 4 compartments, each with about 1/3rd of the DNA, so it corrects radiation-induced-damage before dividing into daughter-cells, sorry I can’t remember where I read that, it was a couple decades ago ), bacteria eating bedrock, down where it’s too hot for anything else to live, etc…

      To presume, as we normally do, that universe’s rules for life are different on Earth than everywhere-else, is … neither evidence-based nor correct-reasoning-based.

      Therefore, betting that no red-dwarf-orbiting planet has any life on it … isn’t a bet I’d do.

      That most such might be lifeless, I’ve no problem with that.

      But any time we assert that “there’s no life” in an entire-category of universe’s places … that’s just prejudice, from what I can see.

      There is some, indirect evidence that microbes used to live on Mars ( chemistry that has no other obvious explanation, e.g. )…

      & that would indicate that life’s actually a normal-default, but that we evolved too-late to encounter Mars’s life…

      Oh, & the flaring thing: being closer to a star makes flaring much more dangerous than it is to us: the energy-density at double the distance ( of the flare, between its sun & its planet ) would be 1/4, right? ( distance-squared ),

      so closer would be massively more likely to be clobbered…

      but … universe consistently surprises our assumptions, so I’m still holding-to the suspend-judgement, only speak for the majority, not for all, position.

      _ /\ _

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      • bedwyr@piefed.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We should not presume either that all life is the same as life on earth. There are combinations of a great many different elements and molecules that could sustain life other than carbon and water and whatever. There could even be life on super hot places.

        Of entirely different elements and molecules. Not saying it’s likely. I have no idea. Nobody does. And anybody that says they do, is either lying or wrong.

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      • macaw_dean_settle@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        *a lot.

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      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Being tidally-locked may mean that not having any Van Allen belts may be irrelevant: the radiation they’re being bombarded by is coming from their sun, & life could evolve on the opposite side, having warmth, & maybe photosynthesis at the daylight-horizon?

        Now that’s cool to think about. What if there’s a large ring of life around the daylight horizon that hosts complex organisms (would plant-like organisms have red chlorophyll?), and to the sun-facing side everything becomes a constant, immense blare of red light, x-rays, and UV radiation; and to the dark side is constant darkness broken only by the stars, and maybe some fungal/bacterial lifeforms and stuff that can feed on them.

        What color would the horizon be? Like the “sunset” of a red dwarf, would it shift to blues and greens and purples or just be invisible?

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    • Ooops@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think the Mars argument is backwards. The missing magnetic field is the main issue. More regular flares being faster in stripping away the unprotected atmosphere is inconsequential on the time scale we are talking about.

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      • gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        also mars does have an atmosphere, it’s just frozen at the poles.

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    • dalekcaan@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s cold outside, there’s no kind of atmosphere

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    • FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      perhaps in revolt against us having judged them on size.

      So Red Dwarfs (Dwarves?) get mad and insecure about being small, and destroy the atmosphere of their local planets? Are they just coal rollers in disguise?

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      • smeg@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Red Dwarfs (Dwarves?)

        Dwarfs if they’re in the sky, dwarves if they’re under the mountain

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    • Asetru@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Image

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  • Asetru@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Image

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    • PugJesus@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Now there’s a meme I haven’t seen in a very long time…

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    • Syndication@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZER

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      • Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        DR. OCTOGONAPUS, BWAAAAH

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  • cobysev@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Image

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    • dohpaz42@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      So a sort of laser from space?

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      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Wait, is the sun Jewish?

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  • chrispy@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Holy shit, red dwarfs are actually death stars?

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    • Klear@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      All stars are death stars if you get close enough!

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      • BillyClark@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Sol seems to be a life star.

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    • Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No, it’s a totally different class.

      Image

      Image

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    • NotEasyBeingGreen@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s no moon star!

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  • shutz@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s cold outside. There’s no kind of atmosphere. I’m all alone. (More or less)

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    • Ooops@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Totally expect Red Dwarf reference…

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    • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Chicken windaloo!

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  • LurkingLuddite@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    No chance of life … as we know it.

    We’re finding some pretty damn hardy forms of life all the time, though, so I’m willing to bet all “no chance” claims are purely ignorance.

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  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Useless red circle.

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  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The one thing that might save the situation is that a planet in the red dwarf’s habitable zone would become tidally locked a few hundred million years after formation, but stripping away the atmosphere could take up to around 2 billion years. This could leave time for intelligent life forms to evolve in the planet’s temperate zone.

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  • Zerush@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    A large planet in the habitable zone of a red dwarf can be docked and always show the same face to the sun. Due to the frequent solar flares of a red dwarf, this part of the planet is devastated, but not necessarily the dark side. Apart from this, a red dwarf is quite violent in its first part of life, but not so much after a certain age, which in this type of suns is billon years more than in suns like ours or larger.

    This is why it can never be ruled out that life exists on this planet, if there are indications of life even on Venus in high layers of its atmosphere.

    Another thing is if we talk about advanced or even technological life, this already requires much more limited margins of conditions. For example, advanced technology requires fire domination as a basis, therefore it excludes oxygen-free environments and aquatic worlds.

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    • I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      So stars also go through the same stages we do? Start out as violent toddlers who cause chaos, then moody goth teenagers who want to see the world burn, then they mellow out into adulthood with a steady career?

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  • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Apparently orange dwarfs are the sweet spot

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  • Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    More powerful flares would be relevant though, I don’t think earths atmosphere could survive a flare 10,000 times more powerful then what the sun puts out

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  • Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Is that a GRB?

    A Giant Red Ball?

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  • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There’s no other life in the universe. Just drop it already.

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    • NotEasyBeingGreen@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      In the late Middle Ages some scholars argued that there could not be humans in the southern hemisphere… a.k.a. antipodes

      The idea was that it gets hotter and hotter as you go further south. Eventually it would get too hot for people to survive, certainly at the equator. So you can’t cross to the temperate parts of the southern hemisphere.

      The Bible doesn’t mention creating any other people on the other side of the planet, and none can get there from the northern hemisphere, so therefore they must not exist. Q.E.D.

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