What are the chances of finding alien life around red dwarf stars? According to my limited knowledge of astronomy, red dwarfs burn their fuel slowly and make up to two-thirds of the stars in the known universe. The rest are like our sun. Could intelligent alien life exist around a red dwarf I wonder? They are dim so life might be far less likely to evolve I would have thought. Anyone got any other thoughts?

Sue.

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'No one can make you inferior without your consent.'
Eleanor Roosevelt.

What are the chances of finding alien life around red dwarf stars? According to my limited knowledge of astronomy, red dwarfs burn their fuel slowly and make up to two-thirds of the stars in the known universe. The rest are like our sun. Could intelligent alien life exist around a red dwarf I wonder? They are dim so life might be far less likely to evolve I would have thought. Anyone got any other thoughts?

Sue.

Susan

I saw something about this on National Geograpic chanel.
It was fascinating.
The scientists say its wary posible that life can develop on a planet that orbits a red star.

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Scorpions - Wind Of Change

It would seem that the only thing that would be different would be that the life containing planet would have to be much closer to the Red Dwarf than we are to our Sun.

Unless of course there would be something different in the light given off by the Red Dwarf that would cause life to not take hold.

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Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained

Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome

Being so much smaller, the higher-frequency electromagnetic radiation would be lower than that given off by our Sun. This could be a double-edged sword, as it would reduce mutation rates, which are often responsible for evolutionary changes.

The amount of particulate stellar radiation would be much lower, too... reducing the requirements for a planetary magnetic field, to protect against the stellar wind blowing away an atmosphere.

It's just a guess, but I'd say, providing a planet is close enough to a red dwarf, it's MORE likely to produce life than a planet orbiting a main sequence star such as our own!

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According to the 'National Geographic' program that Doc mentions (entitled "Extraterrestrial"), life could very well exist on a planet orbiting a red dwarf.

The planet would necessarily be very close to the cool star, and would be gravitationally locked, so that the planet never rotates.

One side would be in everlasting light, where the point nearest the star would be occupied by a _massive_ hurricane that never dies, and the other side would be forever dark and frozen; but between these 2 points there would be a wide, temperate belt. One eternal afternoon.

There would be the occasinal deadly solar flare that the life on the planet could deal with by either hiding, or in the case of plants, folding their leaves, petals, what have you.

Btw, red dwarf stars last perhaps 10 times as long as our type of star does, so that would give a lot of time for evolution, which they'd need, I think.

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I understand that the ozone in our atmosphere filters out 99.6 percent of the ultraviolet "B" rays of our Sun (at the zenith- per "Sky and Telescope" possibly a decade ago) and a lesser amount of the "A" rays. Also I understand that the "C" rays are essentially completely filtered out. Just think what kind of sunburn we'd get if we could stand outside for an afternoon of unfiltered solar rays. It might kill us. With red dwarfs I should think that there would be much less ultraviolet and less of a requirement for filtration.

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i think that life could be found almost everywhere in the universe, ET might differ from us a lot.

i think that life could be found almost everywhere in the universe, ET might differ from us a lot.

I think that this is where a lot of people get stuck about the idea of life on other planets.

Most people forget that we eveolved with out limitations. Not realizing that evolutionary limitations would be completely different on a planet near a Red Dwarf. Or even on a planet near a star similar to our Sun.

Not everything would be exactly the same there as it is here, so the chances of an ET being like us is remote. But people, when they think about ET, tend to think in terms of OUR limitations.

Just my humble opinion. :-)

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Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained

Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome

i think that life could be found almost everywhere in the universe, ET might differ from us a lot.

I think that this is where a lot of people get stuck about the idea of life on other planets.

Most people forget that we eveolved with out limitations. Not realizing that evolutionary limitations would be completely different on a planet near a Red Dwarf. Or even on a planet near a star similar to our Sun.

Not everything would be exactly the same there as it is here, so the chances of an ET being like us is remote. But people, when they think about ET, tend to think in terms of OUR limitations.

Just my humble opinion. :-)

Yes...
After nuclear tests were performed in the desert the researchers went back and found ants and other exoskeleton creatures running around with no problem, their external shell was equivalent to our radiation suits. I have to agree with Knightmare... the life forms that we will oneday encounter {heres hoping]may be VERY VERY different

I think I saw a discover channel show that mentioned that life could evolve *on* a red dwarf star itself, in its outer atmosphere. This type of life form would most probably be silicon-based. not sure if anyone else saw or heard this type of info?

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Astronomy magazine had a good article last month on different forms life could take. It was mostly about different solvents other than water that life could evolve in, ammonia being a top choice because it's simple and plentiful and of course there's a lot of hope for the liquid methane on Titan.

I was wondering when reading it if plasma would count as a solvent -- a basis for life in a red dwarf's atmosphere. As a chemical, water is just as destructive as it is beneficial so the fury of a plasma may not be a complete detriment to molecular organization leading to life. We already know red dwarf atmospheres contain complex molecules.

Also red dwarfs can last for trillions of years, orders of magnitude longer than the sun. Time enough for all kinds of evolutionary experiments that might work.

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