Posts: 13900
Threads: 262
Joined: January 11, 2009
Reputation:
82
RE: Red dwarf flares may threaten alien life
January 19, 2011 at 4:55 pm
(January 19, 2011 at 4:29 pm)Welsh cake Wrote: The search for alien life may have just gotten a lot harder.
The vast majority of stars in our known universe, red dwarfs, with their flares that behave much like variable stars have such unpredictable outbursts that may extinguish life on their orbiting planets before it ever has a chance to establish.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12184029
With emphasis on MAY we have no idea how resilient life can be or all the forms it can take.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
Posts: 69248
Threads: 3759
Joined: August 2, 2009
Reputation:
259
RE: Red dwarf flares may threaten alien life
January 19, 2011 at 6:42 pm
First off, we have to lose the egocentric idea that all "life" would be like us.
For all we know on planets with atmospheres destroyed by solar flares evolution may have created creatures who eat ultraviolet rays and shit gold nuggets.
Would probably be best to find some extraterrestrial life and then worry about it.
Posts: 19788
Threads: 57
Joined: September 24, 2010
Reputation:
85
RE: Red dwarf flares may threaten alien life
January 20, 2011 at 5:27 am
Since modern conception of origin of life on earth proposes that life on our planet begun not in temperate environment exposed to air and subject to any radiation that penetrates the atmosphere, but instead in deep sea or underground hrdrothermal environments, the concept that violent flares would prevent formation of life seems somewhat obsolete.
In any case, we expect plenty of stars bigger than red dwarf that could also theoretical support incipient life on their planetary systems. Since the sun is one such star and it evidently did not exterminate our ancestors, we might extrapolate and say sufficient number of G type stars like the sun might also support biogenesis.
