After a few weeks in which I have been thinking about ancient Cumbria, this week I’m back in space again. In particular, this post looks at some possible locations for alien life which, until recently, were considered most unlikely. Over the last few years, thousands of planets have been identified by equipment both on Earth’s surface and in orbit. We now know that planets are exceedingly common in the galaxy, and that on average, each star has more than one planet. There are more planets near us than stars. Many of these are large in size, gas giants like our own Jupiter and Saturn – larger planets are obviously easier to detect than smaller ones – but a great many are small and rocky, more like Earth.

The most extreme case we know of is designated TRAPPIST-1 (the acronym originating from the Chilean telescope which first detected them). This has seven planets, so the system is broadly like our own. And a very recent analysis suggests that each of them has liquid water at its surface, and in some cases considerably more water than we enjoy here. If we were to travel the forty light years to get there, we might well find a world which is entirely ocean.

But as well as the striking nature of the planetary system, the sun itself is interesting. Up until fairly recently, the search for life elsewhere was focused on stars which were as similar to our sun as possible. It was assumed that this was necessary in order for the associated planets would be like Earth. But TRAPPIST-1 is not at all like our sun – it is a comparatively cool red dwarf star. Red dwarfs are extremely common in space, but they are small and dim, and until modern orbital telescopes revealed the true situation, were thought to be rare.

Now, red dwarf stars are much cooler than our sun, between 1/3 and 2/3 of the effective temperature, so for a planet to be in the Goldilocks Zone – neither too hot nor too cold – it must be much closer to its sun. But that’s OK – in the TRAPPIST-1 system, all seven planets orbit well within the distance that super-hot Mercury circles our sun. Indeed, that system is not much larger than that of the moons of Jupiter. Red dwarfs are miserly with their energy, so you have to huddle in close to the fire to get any warmth. But along with that, they burn at their low rate for a hugely longer time than our sun will last. The hotter and brighter the star, the less time it shines for. Too short a stellar lifetime, and their might not be time for life to develop on whatever planets are around. Red dwarfs give their planets massive amounts of time to develop.

Right now we have absolutely no idea whether any of the TRAPPIST-1 planets supports life – or indeed any of the myriad other red dwarfs and their planets in our quadrant of the galaxy. But if you were a betting person, you’d be more likely to bet on life arising around a red dwarf than a super-hot star like Sirius.

Now, 40 light years is inconveniently far away from Earth for exploration in reality or fiction. Our current generation of telescopes can find out a decent amount of information about the 7 planets of circling TRAPPIST-1, but not nearly as much as one would like. And if you consider near-future science fiction, without warp drives, wormholes, or other exotic ways to travel around space -as I do – then 40 light years is well beyond a realistic journey time. Happily, there are other red dwarfs much closer to us. One of these, which has been studied with great excitement for a few years now, is called Ross 128 (the rather boring name coming from a catalogue number). It has at least one planet (Ross 128-b) which appears to be a little larger and more massive than our Earth, and some calculations suggest that its surface temperature may well be around 21C. Ross 128 is only about 11 light years from Earth, so is getting towards the we-might-send-something-there territory.

I thought about using Ross 128 as the focus of interest in my in-progress novel The Liminal Zone, but in the end pitched for the even-closer Gliese 411 – another catalogue name, which for fictional purposes has been rebranded something more interesting. Gliese 411 is under 9 light years away, and is the 4th-closest star system to us. The planet Gliese 411b is, so far as we can tell, larger than Earth, and almost certainly rather hotter, but (probably) not so hot as to preclude interesting things there. And its proximity to us makes it a credible target for the Breakthrough Starshot project, in which tiny “spacecraft” with roughly the capability of a mobile phone are boosted towards their target by a laser beam shining against a light-catching sail. The miniature spaceships are called Sprites, and last year were tested for their ability to communicate from space after being launched from Earth. Each is just a few centimetres square, weighs just 4 grams, and costs a few tens of dollars. The entire actual cost of the mission is in the devices needed to boost these Sprites to their final speed.

Starshot’s current plans are for Proxima Centauri as target – the nearest star to us, a little over 4 light years away – and a boost to 1/5 light speed. Proxima Centauri is in fact another red dwarf star, and a very recent theoretical study suggests its planet may have a large ocean and survivable temperatures… though so far we lack real observations which might confirm or refute this, and other studies have suggested that the radiation levels are uncomfortably high for life to thrive.

My fictional version is a little more ambitious – Gliese 411 and 1/2 light speed. A journey time of about 17 years, plus the time taken for the homeward bound signal on arrival, means about a 25 year lag from lift-off to analysis of results. It’s still a long time, but less so than some space projects – it is now over 41 years since the two Voyager spacecraft left Earth, and we are still following them. A very recent theoretical study

As to what happens in The Liminal Zone once these little ships get there – well, it’s still work in progress, but hopefully you’ll get a chance to see for yourself early next year!