PlanetS | National Center of Competence in Research | University of Bern | 2016 Oct 24
[img3="Artist’s impression of Earth-sized planets orbiting a red dwarf star.Computer simulations by astrophysicists at the University of Bern of the formation of planets orbiting in the habitable zone of low mass stars such as Proxima Centauri show that these planets are most likely to be roughly the size of the Earth and to contain large amounts of water.
(Credit: NASA, ESA, and G.Bacon (STScI))"]http://www.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/conten ... en_ger.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
In August 2016, the announcement of the discovery of a terrestrial exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri stimulated the imagination of the experts and the general public. After all this star is the nearest star to our sun even though it is ten times less massive and 500 times less luminous. This discovery together with the one in May 2016 of a similar planet orbiting an even lower mass star (Trappist-1) convinced astronomers that such red dwarfs (as these low mass stars are called) might be hosts to a large population of Earth-like planets.
How could these objects look like? What could they be made of? Yann Alibert and Willy Benz at the Swiss NCCR PlanetS at the University of Bern carried out the first computer simulations of the formation of the population of planets expected to orbit stars ten times less massive than the sun. ...
Formation and composition of planets around very low mass stars - Yann Alibert, Willy Benz
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1610.03460 > 11 Oct 2016