Our M-dwarf Models Just Aren’t Good Enough
We need to know the radii of M-dwarfs to study their exoplanets, and the models aren’t much help.
Cool Stars 20
This week about 500 astronomers met in Boston, MA for the 20th Cambridge Workshop on Cool stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun (Cool Stars) meeting.
Fraught with Spots
If we don’t understand starspots, we won’t understand exoplanet atmospheres.
Conserving Water on the TRAPPIST-1 planets
Three more potentially habitable planets that are also relatively nearby have been discovered! If they are really in their habitable zone, they should have water today, but only if they did not lose it all early on in their lifetimes. Could any of these planets have retained their water supply?
Starspots to Measure Small Differential Rotation Rates
On using photometric data from Kepler to study starspots, and to measure differential rotation rates.
How do M-dwarf Stars Measure Up?
Very low-mass M-dwarfs are a missing link in our theory of stellar interiors. Stars this small probably have fully convective interiors, but we don’t have a complete understanding of how that affects global properties like radius or temperature. It’s important to get right, if for no other reason because lots of exoplanets orbit M-dwarfs.