Red Dwarf Habitable Zone Earth Size Planets are Like Venus





The Earth sits squarely in the sun’s habitable zone. A star’s “habitable zones” is the distance range around a star where planets can have liquid water on their surface. Astronomers have been excited to find that about 40% of red dwarfs have approximately Earth size planets orbiting them many of which are in the stars habitable zone. This fact has lead to the suggestion that these planet could have life on them. A new study shows that tidal forces may dry out Earth size planets orbiting within a red dwarf “habitable zones” making them more like Venus than Earth and therefore hostile to life.