As stated, M-dwarf stars are both smaller and cooler than our own Sun, and range in size from 0.08 to 0.6 solar masses while exhibiting luminosities from 0.0001 to 0.1 times our Sun. This means the HZ is also much farther in towards the star, which could result in some interesting star-planetary interactions. So, what can M-dwarf stars teach us about planetary formation and evolution?
“The M-dwarf systems that have been discovered are fascinating because they are so different from the solar system,” said Dr. Childs. “We are finding more super-Earths and less giant planets around low mass stars than we are around larger stars like our Sun. For a long time, planet formation theory was dominated by theories that did a good job at explaining the solar system.
“Right now, we know of only one place in the universe that has life and that’s around our Sun,” said Dr. Childs. “While there are a lot of practical reasons for looking for life around M-dwarfs, there might come a time when we’ve exhausted our methods and we’ll need to change our tactics and our targets.
For now, the search for life beyond Earth continues at a fever pitch. With new tools just the James Webb Space Telescope, and more ground-based telescopes coming online in the coming years, it could be only a matter of time until we find even the smallest traces of life beyond Earth. Unless we’ve already found, and just don’t know it.
“It’s possible that we’ve observed planets that do host life, but we just don’t yet have the technology capable of observing any subtle traces of it,” said Dr. Childs. “Life elsewhere could also be so drastically different from our current understanding of it that we fail to recognize it when we do observe it.