Dwarf planetary systems will transform the hunt for alien life | Aeon Ideas
https://aeon.co/ideas/dwarf-planetary-systems-will-transform-the-hunt-for-alien-life
Searching for habitable planets around ultra-cool dwarfs has long been considered a waste of time. Even as astronomers found that exoplanetary systems
are generally different from the solar system, old attitudes lingered. The Earth and Sun appear so normal and hospitable to our eyes that we get blinded
by their attributes. Major programmes are therefore directed at finding an Earth twin: a planet the mass and size of our own, orbiting a star just like
the Sun, at the same Earth-Sun distance. The detection of such a world remains decades away.
In the effort to answer the question ‘Is there life elsewhere?’ the focus on Earth twins is perceived as a safe path, since we can expect that similar
conditions will lead to similar results (at least part of the time). However, we argue that this is far too conservative a goal, considering the huge number
and diversity of available planets. That is part of the message of TRAPPIST-1. Research should be about finding what we don’t already know. Identifying
a life-bearing Earth twin would be a resounding scientific success, but it would teach little about the overall emergence of biology in the Universe.
Our ambition is wider. Instead, we seek an answer to ‘How frequently is life found elsewhere?’ This simple change of words means that we should also be
investigating planetary systems unlike the solar system. It would be disappointing and surprising if Earth were the only template for habitability in
the Universe. Sun-like stars represent just 15 per cent of all stars in the Milky Way. More than half of those, in turn, exist in binary star systems
that have also been disregarded as being too different from the conditions present in the solar system. The search for Earth twins therefore covers
a nearly insignificant fraction of all the outcomes in nature.
Tiny Suns Are Transforming the Search for Extraterrestrial Life - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/...warf-planetary-systems-will-transform-the-hunt-for-alien-life/525057/
