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Stellar Flares May Expand Habitable Zones Around Small Stars
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Stellar Flares May Expand Habitable Zones Around Small Stars

Universe Today·Laurence Tognetti, MSc·about 1 month ago
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The search for life beyond Earth has traditionally focused on exoplanets orbiting Sun-like stars, which is a G-type star. However, low-mass stars, which are designated as K-type and M-type stars, have rapidly become a target for astrobiology, primarily due to their much longer lifetimes. This also means the habitable zone (HZ), which is the distance from a star where liquid water could exist, is much smaller than our solar system’s HZ, and is referred to as the liquid water habitable zone (LW-HZ). In contrast, another type of HZ that involves a star’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation potentially enabling life-harboring conditions is known as UV-HZ. Now, a team of researchers from China have improved upon the definition of UV-HZ. Their findings were recently published in The Innovation and could help scientists better understand the parameters and conditions of finding life beyond Earth, and specifically in exoplanetary systems.…

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