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The red dwarf strikes again with 42 observed solar flares. Back in February, NASA and ESO announced the discovery of three potentially habitable Earth-like exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Astronomers analyzing data from the Kepler space telescope have observed energetic solar flares which they believe could make it less likely that the TRAPPIST-1 system could host life.
Frequent flaring in the TRAPPIST-1 system - unsuited for life? (arXiv:1703.10130)
Related: Probability of CME Impact on Exoplanets Orbiting M Dwarfs and Solar-like Stars (DOI: 10.3847/0004-637X/826/2/195) (DX)
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Powerful Solar Flares Found at TRAPPIST-1 Could Dim Chances for Life
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Hey, wait a minute!! I want a divorce!! ... you're not Clint Eastwood!!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:05PM (6 children)
Seems to me that adding a lot of energy in a system may not be a bad thing to kickstart life.
In our version of life, that would cause lots of funny mutations. But we've found extremophiles in many places we found impossible.
Especially if those planets are tidally locked, you have a prime interface with lots of energy, and a shielded side...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:50PM (4 children)
I won't dismiss it since we don't know, but I don't think fast bursts of energy are great for life. Good for making popcorn, though.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 06 2017, @06:49PM
> I don't think fast bursts of energy are great for life
Cue Frankenstein: It's Alive!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @10:16PM (1 child)
Life on the star-facing side pops, and life on the shaded side enjoy sneaking over to munch it up. Rinse, repeat.
Rename it the Orville Redenbacher system.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 07 2017, @12:42PM
This happens annually in the Earth's polar seas - huge blooms of algae and krill when sunny, turns to nutrient goo when dark.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 07 2017, @12:39PM
In rivers it's called a pulse ecosystem. It does make it harder for big trees to take root and big fish to hang out, but it is far from a desert.
Actually, desert rivers that dry for years also bloom, richly, when the water "pulses" through.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 07 2017, @12:35PM
I was going to say: less likely to host life Earth style.
If there are oceans, they should provide pretty good shelter from solar flare radiation. Maybe life out of the ocean and at the surface will be more challenging, but hardly impossible, and if it's not impossible - given billions of years, gigatons of potentially life-reactive chemicals, and sufficient energy to make them react - it will happen.
The question I find more interesting is: will the shelter spots be big enough with varied enough niches to have a rich evolutionary chaos?
🌻🌻 [google.com]