Cloud behavior expands habitable zone of alien planets

[stephen63]

A new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of stars in the universe. This finding means that in the Milky Way galaxy alone, 60 billion planets may be orbiting red dwarf stars in the habitable zone. Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University based their study, which appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters, on rigorous computer simulations of cloud behavior on alien planets. This cloud behavior dramatically expanded the habitable zone of red dwarfs, which are much smaller and fainter than stars like the sun.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-cloud-beha ... n.html#jCp

[bystander]

Cloud modeling expands estimate of life-supporting planets
University of Chicago | Northwestern University | 2013 Jul 01

Larger habitable zone suggests 60 billion planets could sustain water, life

Stabilizing Cloud Feedback Dramatically Expands the Habitable Zone of Tidally Locked Planets - Jun Yang, Nicolas B. Cowan, Dorian S. Abbot

• Astrophysical Journal Letters 771(2) L45 (2013 Jul 10) DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/771/2/L45

[mjimih]

This is great news. Was curious; does life inevitably need a UV blocking ozone layer for protection? Even from a cool red dwarf. Or are the clouds (and or oceans) enough in most cases to protect delicate life forms from uv or stronger radiation from their star?