M dwarfs
Ocean Salinity Affects Earth’s Climate. How About on Exoplanets?
There's a link between Earth's ocean salinity and its climate. Salinity can have a dramatic effect on the climate of…
Do We Now Have an Accurate Map of Nearby Stars?
If the Sun has a stellar neighbourhood, it can be usefully defined as a 20 parsec (65 light-years) sphere centred…
An Earth-sized Exoplanet Found Orbiting a Jupiter-Sized Star
Red dwarf stars, also known as M-dwarfs, dominate the Milky Way's stellar population. They can last for 100 billion years…
TRAPPIST-1 Outer Planets Likely Have Water
The TRAPPIST-1 solar system generated a swell of interest when it was observed several years ago. In 2016, astronomers using the Transiting…
This Planet is Way Too Big for its Star
Scientists love outliers. Outliers are nature's way of telling us what its boundaries are and where its limits lie. Rather…
Do Red Dwarfs or Sunlike Stars Have More Earth-Sized Worlds?
Earth is our only example of a habitable planet, so it makes sense to search for Earth-size worlds when we're…
A Third of Planets Orbiting Red Dwarf Stars Could be in the Habitable Zone
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a pair of researchers from the University…
Maybe We Don’t See Aliens Because Nobody Wants to Come Here
The Fermi Paradox won't go away. It's one of our most compelling thought experiments, and generations of scientists keep wrestling…
It Turns out, We Have a Very Well-Behaved Star
Should we thank our well-behaved Sun for our comfy home on Earth? Some stars behave poorly. They're unruly and emit…
The Perfect Stars to Search for Life On Their Planets
We tend to think of our Earthly circumstances as normal. A watery, temperate world orbiting a stable yellow star. A…