A new large-scale study of Earth's stellar neighborhood has shown that searching for "Earth 2.0" around stars similar to our Sun may not be the most effective strategy. Astronomers have found that the most favorable conditions for the development and long-term existence of complex life forms are provided by orange dwarfs of class K, which are significantly more stable and long-lived than solar analogs. This is stated in a publication by ZME Science, writes UNN.
Details
Sebastian Carrasco-Haxiola from Georgia State University presented the results of a spectroscopic analysis of more than 2,100 K-class dwarf stars within 130 light-years of our planet.
According to the data obtained, these orange stars combine the best characteristics: they are not as aggressive as common red dwarfs, which constantly burn out the atmospheres of their planets with flares, and at the same time have a much longer life cycle than yellow stars like our Sun.
The gift of time: evolution spanning tens of billions of years
One of the main arguments in favor of orange dwarfs is their extraordinary longevity. While the Sun will exhaust its fuel in about 10 billion years, K-class stars remain stable for 17 to 70 billion years.
This gives potential life on their planets a huge time reserve for evolutionary experiments - several times more than Earth had to create human civilization.
New guidelines for future space missions
The researchers' conclusion is unequivocal: orange dwarfs are the "best cosmic real estate" for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. They emit significantly less harmful ultraviolet radiation than red dwarfs and create stable conditions for the biosphere for entire epochs. Now astronomers plan to focus future telescopes precisely on the planetary systems of "K-stars," considering them the main habitat of potential ancient civilizations in our galactic neighborhood.