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The concept of life forms living on the surface of neutron stars was proposed by radio astronomer Frank Drake in 1973. Drake said that the atomic nuclei in neutron stars have large variety which might combine in supernuclei, analogous to the molecules that serve the base of life on Earth.
For these reasons NASA's Kepler Mission is searching for habitable planets at nearby main-sequence stars that are less massive than spectral type A but more massive than type M—making the most probable stars to host life dwarf stars of types F, G, and K. [128]
Planetary habitability in the Solar System is the study that searches the possible existence of past or present extraterrestrial life in those celestial bodies. As exoplanets are too far away and can only be studied by indirect means, the celestial bodies in the Solar System allow for a much more detailed study: direct telescope observation, space probes, rovers and even human spaceflight.
A 2020 study found that about half of Sun-like stars could host rocky, potentially habitable planets. Specifically, they estimated that, on average, the nearest habitable zone planet around G and K-type stars is about 6 parsecs away, and there are about 4 rocky planets around G and K-type stars within 10 parsecs (32.6 light years) of the Sun. [33]
For a circumbinary planet, orbital stability is guaranteed only if the planet's distance from the stars is significantly greater than star-to-star distance. [citation needed] The minimum stable star-to-circumbinary-planet separation is about 2–4 times the binary star separation, or orbital period about 3–8 times the binary period. The ...
A planet's atmospheric conditions influence its ability to retain heat so that the location of the habitable zone is also specific to each type of planet: desert planets (also known as dry planets), with very little water, will have less water vapor in the atmosphere than Earth and so have a reduced greenhouse effect, meaning that a desert ...
The habitability of neutron star systems is the potential of planets and moons orbiting a neutron star to provide suitable habitats for life. [1] Of the roughly 3000 neutron stars known, only a handful have sub-stellar companions. The most famous of these are the low-mass planets around the millisecond pulsar PSR B1257+12.
Red dwarfs [12] are the smallest, coolest, and most common type of star. Estimates of their abundance range from 70% of stars in spiral galaxies to more than 90% of all stars in elliptical galaxies, [13] [14] an often quoted median figure being 72–76% of the stars in the Milky Way (known since the 1990s from radio telescopic observation to be a barred spiral). [15]