strip away the ozone layer of Earth-like planets tagged posts

Artist’s impression of a red dwarf star orbited by an exoplanet. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Bacon (STScI)

Intense radiation could strip away the ozone layer of Earth-like planets around other stars and render them uninhabitable, according to a new study led by Dr Eike Guenther of the Thueringer Observatory in Germany. Astronomers now know of around 4000 planets in orbit around other stars. A handful of these are both Earth-sized and in the habitable zones of the stars they orbit, where the temperature is right for liquid water.

But many candidate Earth-sized worlds are in orbit around red dwarf stars, much smaller and cooler than our own Sun. To be in the habitable zone, the planets need to be much closer to their stars than we are to the Sun...