About 40 percent of red dwarf stars may have Earth-sized planets orbiting them that have the right conditions for life, that is, their surface water would be liquid.
Red dwarfs – which are smaller and cooler than our sun – are extremely common, making up 80 percent of stars in the galaxy. Considering that about 80%, or 160 billion, of the Milky Way’s stars are red dwarfs, there are likely more than 65 billion stars in our galaxy with a habitable super-Earth and about 100 of them lie within 10 parsecs, or 32.6 light-years, of Earth. Learn more here or here.
Tags: Astronomy
