Are there planets beyond Earth where humans could live? The answer is possibly, according to a new study by physicists at the University of Texas at Arlington, who explored F-type star systems.
Stars fall into seven lettered categories according to their surface temperature. They also differ in other factors including mass, luminosity, and radius. F-types are in the middle of the scale, hotter and more massive than our sun. F-type stars are yellowish white in color and have surface temperatures of more than 10,000 degrees.
A habitable zone (HZ) is the distance from a star at which water could exist on orbiting planets’ surfaces. In the research led by doctoral student Shaan Patel and co-authored by professors Manfred Cuntz and Nevin Weinberg, the physicists presented a detailed statistical analysis of the currently known planet-hosting F-type stars using the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The archive is an online exoplanet and star data service that collects data for research.
“F-type stars are usually considered the high-luminosity end of stars with a serious prospect for allowing an environment for planets favorable for life,” Dr. Cuntz said. “However, those stars are often ignored by the scientific community. Although F-type stars have a shorter lifetime than our sun, they have a wider HZ. In short, F-type stars are not hopeless in the context of astrobiology.”
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