http://www.space.com/14535-alien-planets-water-tidal-forces.html Seriously, they need to make the article titles more specific because the article states that 'tidal venuses', as they call them, wouldn't happen around stars like ours (F, G, and K class) since they'd have to be so close that the radiation alone would render such a planet uninhabitable anyway. Think of some of the hottest jupiters that we have found, that close or even closer.
The article is saying that Red Dwarfs from about a third of the suns mass downward (from around M3 class and downwards), planets around brown dwarfs and dead stars such as White Dwarfs and Pulsars (assuming the planets survive the stars death) would likely see this kind of fate.
Also, they've been looking at a single planet and star evolving together, up next is simulating multiple planets and possibly binary stars.
It would be AWESOME if US3 could simulate tidal effects because we already have a very good (admittedly probably not at the same precision the researchers are using) gravity simulator.
Anyways, it's time we stopped looking at red dwarf stars (although Kepler is looking at every star it can see) and started looking more at class F to K type stars for planets in their habitable zones.
Topic: Life around Red Dwarfs just got tougher (Read 4351 times)
