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posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the little-red-men? dept.

Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the universe, and nearly every one of these stars may have a planet located in its habitable zone where life has the best chance of existing, a new study concludes.

This discovery may increase the chances that alien life could exist elsewhere in the cosmos, researchers say. They detailed their findings in the International Journal of Astrobiology. Red dwarfs, also known as M dwarf stars, are up to 50 times dimmer than the Sun and are just 10 to 20 percent as massive. They make up to 70 percent of the stars in the universe.

Abstract.

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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:40PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:40PM (#80863)

    Say what you will about Chris Barrie, Danny John-Jules, Craig Charles, and Robert Llewellyn, but I don't think any of them are aliens.

    Of course Rimmer thinks everything is aliens, even when it's not.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by present_arms on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:43PM

      by present_arms (4392) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:43PM (#80865) Homepage Journal

      That's because Rimmer is a smeeeeg heeeead :)

      --
      http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
    • (Score: 1) by looorg on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:54PM

      by looorg (578) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:54PM (#80894)

      One is a hologram, one is a mechanoid (or robot), one was barely human before and is now the last human being in the universe and the last one is something that evolved over millions of years from a cat. I think Rimmer might have been onto something in this case.

    • (Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:29PM

      by umafuckitt (20) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:29PM (#80916)

      Damn, you're quick! I just signed on to make a very similar joke and you beat me to it. :)

      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 13 2014, @08:06PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @08:06PM (#80955) Journal

        You needed almost two hours to sign on? :-)

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:42PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:42PM (#80864)

    The Miraluka home world of Alpheridies is a planet of a red dwarf star system, so I think there's something to this. (Wow, that was the easiest soft-toss Star Wars reference in the history of the Internet! This moment may never come again.)

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
    • (Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:34PM

      by Blackmoore (57) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:34PM (#80885) Journal

      That's no moon...

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:32PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:32PM (#80919) Journal

        That's no moon...

        ... that's a redundant post.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:36PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:36PM (#80886) Journal

    Being to far away will freeze any life in its tracks. But being to close might expose same life to a stars nuclear processes. So is being close enough for life to a red star far enough away to keep radiation levels low enough? And lifeforms perhaps has dug into the soil to protect themselfes. Which of course makes them extremely hard to spot.

    There's also the assumption whether extremofiles or not that all life is carbon based. I think that assumption has to be reconsidered.

    Remember universe is large, and so is human collective stupidity!

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:00PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:00PM (#80900)

      "There's also the assumption whether extremofiles or not that all life is carbon based. I think that assumption has to be reconsidered."

      I've occasionally consider that and I'm not too impressed with the chances. So algae and later, plants, have been pooping out corrosive oxygen into our atmosphere for a billion years and we STILL haven't managed to kill off the last of the anerobes?

      The only way to kill off the anerobes seems to be the classic "nuke it from orbit just to be sure" and even that isn't certain.

      So if it was possible for silicon based life or whatever to exist, I'd be fairly confident that if I kicked over a rock in my backyard I'd find a sample. But its never happened. I'm not terribly optimistic.

      Life's hard to kill. If its possible it seems to happen. If its believed impossible it happens anyway until we figure out why its possible after all. You may not get what you want (like E.T. or the Vulcans) but you'll get "something" at least.

      The short story is all the dinos may be dead, but the long story is oh well except for the chickens and the alligators and the snakes and the iguanas and ...

      So life is possible based on silicon (or whatever), but not a single example whatsoever is alive on the Earth? Not likely. Not likely at all.

      The only credible possibility I can think of is something really weird and unusual on the earth's surface at this time. Like it forms out of piles of highly enriched uranium. Or it takes millions of tons of high concentration of indium. Or requires a weird crystalline form of iron that only exists near the Earth's core due to heat/pressure. Could happen, but I'm not betting on it.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:49PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:49PM (#80928) Journal

        Because the conditions on earth are like they are, they make it easy for some life forms and harder for others. And the domination of carbon based life might very well be based a bit on first mover advantage.

        Universe is big and our capabilities to even find out even what's under a few centimeters of soil on other bodies are poor. So a lot of surprises to be had.

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 13 2014, @08:13PM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @08:13PM (#80958) Journal

          While we don't know much about other worlds, there's one thing we are pretty sure of: Atoms have the same properties throughout the universe, and we know all the naturally occurring elements by now. And the ability of carbon to build complex chemical structures is quite unique.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 13 2014, @08:49PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 13 2014, @08:49PM (#80965)

          "first mover advantage"

          Yeah but that was my point about anerobes. Some don't tolerate oxygen very well at all, others just get wiped out by "better" aerobes.

          Something I hadn't considered is in the long run much as the aerobes are pretty much version 2.0 of the anerobes the logical next step after hominid carbon based lifeforms might be silicon based gray goo or whatever.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:01PM

          by frojack (1554) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:01PM (#80990) Journal

          Because the conditions on earth are like they are, they make it easy for some life forms and harder for others.

          One of the first points VLM made was that its almost impossible for one life form to kill off another, even accidentally. Oxygen hasn't killed off the aerobics. Hasn't even made it harder for them.

          Carbon based life would probably not impede silicon based or arsenic based life forms, etc Hell, they might not even compete for resources.

          First mover doesn't apply unless the life forms compete for the same resource.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 14 2014, @12:49AM

            by kaszz (4211) on Thursday August 14 2014, @12:49AM (#81039) Journal

            One type of life may terraform the environment to fit another lifeform.

            • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:50PM

              by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:50PM (#81524) Journal

              Well we've got it pretty well terraformed, so those who sent us should be arriving soon.

              Oh, wait. The mice. I forgot the mice.
              You have to admire the subtlety.

              --
              No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:48PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:48PM (#80951)

        Nukes wouldn't be nearly enough - I seem to recall reading that the vast majority (by mass) of Earth life lives deep in the crust. You could turn the whole surface into a radioactive wasteland, and by the time the fallout percolated deep enough to wipe out the last strongholds it would have decayed down to background levels.

        Also, while we're pretty sure chickens descended from dinosaurs, snakes, lizards, etc. did NOT. Reptiles were around long before dinosaurs evolved and took most of the choicest ecosystem niches away from them.

  • (Score: 2) by khallow on Wednesday August 13 2014, @09:44PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 13 2014, @09:44PM (#80982) Journal

    The problem is that a bunch of those stars will have planets that consist of hydrogen and helium with traces amounts of "metals", that is, anything higher up the periodic table. That rules out most dynamics more complicated than near ideal gases. These "metal-poor" stars probably aren't going to have life unless it came from somewhere else.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:37PM

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:37PM (#81007) Journal

      The problem is that a bunch of those stars will have planets that consist of hydrogen and helium with traces amounts of "metals",

      I don't see what that has to do with it.
      Saturn is approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium.
      Jupiter is 90% hydrogen and 10% helium.

      Didn't prevent life on Earth, some say having a few gas giants around is a good thing.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by khallow on Thursday August 14 2014, @12:41AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 14 2014, @12:41AM (#81036) Journal

        Saturn is approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium.

        Jupiter is 90% hydrogen and 10% helium.

        No, the upper atmosphere of those gas giants that we can see has those concentrations. For example, those two planets probably have the same actual relative concentrations of hydrogen and helium (the universe average: 3 parts hydrogen to 1 part helium).
         
         

        Didn't prevent life on Earth

        Note that Earth is mostly not hydrogen or helium. It probably would have prevented life on Earth, if it were.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:48PM

          by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:48PM (#81523) Journal

          Point is, the presence of gas giants has nothing to do with life developing on rocky planets.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday August 15 2014, @12:59AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 15 2014, @12:59AM (#81543) Journal

            The point is that you can have a lot less material available for making rocky planets. For example, the Sun has about 300,000 times the mass of Earth. According to this site [astronomynotes.com], about 2% of its mass is something heavier than helium. So right there, it has about 6,000 times the mass of Earth in anything with atomic number of 3 or higher ("metal"). So now, for an extreme example, take a star a third the mass of the Sun with ten thousand times less "metal" per unit mass. Now, you have the star with 0.2 the mass of Earth in "metal". In the case of the Sun, it has about a thousand times as much mass as the rest of the Solar System combined (most of the rest lying in Jupiter). So in that situation, a spherical body with the density of Earth and that much matter would be roughly 400 miles in diameter. That's a bit less than the size of Ceres with a bit more mass. But that's assuming that mass doesn't end up at the bottom of a gas giant.

  • (Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:40PM

    by SlimmPickens (1056) on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:40PM (#81010)

    What kind of bearing does this have on the probability to have a large rocky planet in this zone? Methinks one needs a large planet that can retain it's magnetic shield for a long time to make use of the long lived star.

    I think not enough credence is given to the amount of time it's going to take to produce intelligent life. OK so some big stars are starting to blow up only twenty million years after the big bang but how long does it really take for that stuff to disperse and then get reprocessed several times?

    And another thing is that life sprung up maybe only one hundred million years after the planet cooled down but it took several billion more to go multicellular. The reason is that cellular bonding is very energy intensive and requires oxygen. Those proteins and enzymes existed for millions of years before as tools for one bacteria to attach and eat another but they couldn't take the next step until the oxygen was available.

    So how often are we going to get oxygen rich atmosphere for an extended period...while meeting all the other criteria?

    • (Score: 2) by velex on Thursday August 14 2014, @03:20AM

      by velex (2068) on Thursday August 14 2014, @03:20AM (#81075) Journal

      The real question here is how long an intelligent lifeform can maintain radio communications. If the answer is maybe 200-ish years or so, then we'll never contact other intelligent life. Yes, intelligent life that may be very strange to our own notions is totally out there (like totally, man), but it was transmitting while we were in the last dark age or else while we're in the next dark age.

      How long has our species been transmitting to the stars? How long until we stop transmitting to the stars? We've only made one serious attempt to transmit, although I can't remember the name of the project. Think Mork and Mindy (god rest his weary soul, if there are such things as gods or souls) are going to be received 50 lightyears out? Of course not.

      I've often thought that a serious attempt to contact other civilizations (and strange new life forms!) would take a project, the duration of which must be measured in millennia. It would involve powerful transmissions to hopeful worlds and the careful listening for any kind of response. Also, we must reckon with Dr. Hawking's idea that any civilization that would make contact with us would do so in a militaristic way. Sagan or Hawking lol. Take your stance.

      So, we're at the mercy of our own nature. Perhaps other civilizations are as well. Who's going to get Congress to fund a project that spans millennia? That person would have more of a golden tongue than I can imagine.

    • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday August 14 2014, @05:35AM

      by dry (223) on Thursday August 14 2014, @05:35AM (#81085) Journal

      We have no idea how often intelligent life has arisen on the Earth. The dinosaurs and friends were around for 200 million years, perhaps one species had become tool using and on the way to advanced technology when the meteorite hit, or was living close to a super volcano that blew. The ecosystem is fragile and life has been reset a number of times. Meteorites/comets, volcanism, continent drift forcing climate change, even life forcing climate and atmospheric changes.
      As well it takes more then intelligence to become technological, having a culture that passes on knowledge is one aspect. The smartest octopus won't ever do much as it has no family or tribe to teach it anything. Even the various Homo species have spent most of their time with a technology consisting of wood, rock and fire, there's still isolated groups like that and they don't leave much evidence that will last millions of years
      Then there's the fact that we seem to be creating an extinction event that may well take us with it. The average species seems to only last for 5 million years.