The incredible and erratic behaviour of Red Dwarfs

Red Dwarf stars seem to be far more active than previously thought - good news for astronomers, but terrible news for any habitable planets around them...

25 January 2011

By Chris Smith.

Part of the show Antimatter Storms and the Universe's Dark Ages

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This is an artist's concept of a red dwarf star undergoing a powerful eruption, called a stellar flare. A hypothetical planet is in the foreground. Flares are sudden eruptions of heated plasma that occur when the field lines of powerful magnetic...

Credit:

NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

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Red Dwarf stars seem to be far more active than previously thought - good news for astronomers, but terrible news for any habitable planets around them...