Red dwarf stars might starve alien plants of the ‘quality’ light they need to breathe

Red dwarfs make up the vast majority of stars in the galaxy. Such ubiquity means they host the majority of rocky exoplanets we’ve found so far—which in turn makes them interesting for astrobiological surveys. However, there’s a catch—astrobiologists aren’t sure the light from these stars can actually support oxygen-producing life. A new paper, available on the arXiv preprint server, by Giovanni Covone and Amedeo Balbi, suggests that they might not—when it comes to stellar light, quality is just as important as quantity. And according to their calculations, Earth-like biospheres are incredibly difficult to sustain around red dwarfs.

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