« Geneticists identify four new breast-cancer genes | Main | Silicon crystal cooked to perfection »

Red dwarfs could harbour life

Planets around commonest stars in our Galaxy might be warm and safe.

The most common type of star in the Galaxy may be more hospitable to life than was previously believed, say astronomers who have calculated how much radiation planets orbiting such stars would receive.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on May 29, 2007 06:44 PM |

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.nature.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2662

Comments

So the BBC television series Red Dwarf might have been true to life. As they say "Truth is Stranger than Fiction"

Posted by: Gary Dargan | May 30, 2007 12:22 AM

I have been tracking such developments related to other "habitable" planets for the past two decades, which sometimes make me entertain some thoughts that I might have been a frustrated astronomer, or a potential galactic invader. This news is really good news.

Great prospects are at stake for the human race if ever the feet of our generations will reach other planets and settle there. However, there are some concerns which my amoebic mind cannot decipher at present:

(1) How much time would it take humans to adopt with the new "environment?" Would this new environment present worse calamities? Or would this new environment have a hidden cataclysmic design that would eventually phase out all biotic entities at a split of a second, then revert to its original state again?

(2) Will a different human species emerge from that new environment?

(3) How will the human fleet reach that new planet, and how long? What is the impact of that travel to their overall being?

Crazy thoughts, eh?

Posted by: Caezar Angelito Estioko Arceo | May 30, 2007 02:22 AM

Post a comment

Comments will be reviewed by staff before being published. You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Excessively long entries may be cropped. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers or press releases.

We strongly encourage you to use your real, full name. Email addresses are required: this is just in case we need to discuss your comment with you privately. They won’t be published.


Please enter the numbers you see below - this helps us to cut down on spam. Note that attempting to post within 30 seconds of hitting ‘preview’ or ‘post’ can cause the system to think you are spamming the site. If you are having trouble with this system, you can instead e-mail a comment to 'inthefield at nature.com'.

Search