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Exoplanets

Predicting ‘Earth-like’ planets around red dwarfs

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The Earth is a rocky planet in the so-called classical habitable zone (HZ), with a surface ocean taking up just ~10–4 of its total mass. A study suggests that 5–10% of Earth-sized planets in the HZ around red dwarfs are ‘Earth-like’: rocky, with a small but non-zero amount of water on their surface.

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Fig. 1: Secondary production of water on planetary surfaces through chemical interaction between primordial atmospheres and magma oceans.

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Correspondence to Shigeru Ida.

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Ida, S. Predicting ‘Earth-like’ planets around red dwarfs. Nat Astron 6, 1231–1232 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01822-9

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