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11/09/2024

Topic Reading-Vol.4582-11/9/2024

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 
Alien worlds might not have a night and day. How would that change evolution
There are over 100 billion stars in the Milky Way only, and there are quite a few planets that orbit each star in the habitable distance that could host liquid water. Many of those stars aren’t necessarily like our sun but cooler red dwarfs, called M-dwarfs, and around 40% of them are estimated to have one or more planets orbiting in the habitable zone, called M-Earths. They are different from our Earth because their suns are redder and cooler, which means M-Earths orbit their M-Dwarfs at a much closer distance than the Earth. This makes the gravitational pull of the M-Dwarf on the M-Earth much stronger than the one on the Earth, which means most M-Earths are locked so that one side of the planet faces the sun while the other always faces the other side, just like our Moon always faces one side to the Earth. In such an environment, what sorts of life forms could evolve and flourish? One idea is to look at deep creatures, which live under high water pressure with no or little light. Also, bacteria in our bodies live without light. Temperature, water, gravity, oxygen, and light all matter to the life forms. 
Read the article and learn about the environment of exoplanets.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241011-why-alien-worlds-might-not-have-days-and-nights

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