NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nyeshet" data-source="post: 5359638" data-attributes="member: 18363">That is a problem. Also a problem is explaining how a planet formed between two stars so near each other in the first place. A red dwarf separated from a sun-like star - let alone a much more gravitationally powerful F, A, or even O type star - by only 5 AUs (Jupiter distance) would be near enough to have any dusty disc surrounding it torn away by the gravity of the companion star - even if the potential planet was as near as the red dwarf's habitable zone. Actually, with O type stars the situation is worse. I recall an article that spoke of dusty planetary discs around young stars being literally blown away (gradually) by the solar wind of O type stars a mere 5 to 10 light years distant. Having an O type star 5 to 10 AUs distant would likely prevent any planet from forming even around a sun-like star, let alone a red dwarf. However, red dwarves live a *very* long time. The eldest ones still have more than 10x the current age of the universe before there is any chance of them going out. So why not a captured one that formed its planets late and then joined another star (perhaps gathering a disc when passing through a nebula - long after its own flaring youthful couple billion years, then a few billion years later being captured by another star into a binary orbit - losing its outter planets in the process but keeping those one or two nearest its surface). Now we have a nice stable red dwarf with a planet within its habitable zone fully developed, and a binary companion that might be as close as 5 to 10 AUs. Such would have to be an extremely rare event, as no such binary system so close together and yet with a planet around one of the two has yet been found. Note, however, that even an F type star would not give a notable amount of heat at Jovian distances. You would need at least an A - maybe an O, and yes, when the younger larger star goes supernova, the tidally locked world is toast. (Actually, for an O type star, the world would be toast during the red giant phase, when the red dwarf - at 5 AU - would likely end up skimming almost over the surface of the red giant's outter envelope of atmosphere).</blockquote>

Verification