The Galaxy's Most Common Habitable Zones May Be DEADLY

The habitable zones of the galaxy's most common stars may be some of the deadliest places to live.

Most stars aren't like our Sun. They're red dwarfs: small, cool, and dim. Their habitable zones huddle in tight and close, far nearer the star than Earth is to the Sun.

That closeness is the danger. Red dwarfs are violent, especially when young, erupting with enormous flares that blast nearby planets with radiation and X-rays far beyond anything Earth endures. A world in that cozy band of liquid water gets hammered again and again. Over millions of years, those flares can strip away its atmosphere, peeling off the very air and water the habitable zone is meant to allow. The planet ends up in the right place for life, but stripped bare.

It's a cruel catch. The most abundant home for habitable-zone planets in the galaxy may also be drenched in the radiation most likely to kill anything living there.

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