Habitability around stars with spots

[caballerodiez91]

Hi guys,

My question is not about the sun, but stars in general. Do you know if planets in the habitable zone around stars with huge starspots could host intelligent life? Maybe the huge variations in brightness would prevent any planet from hosting life?

Do you know if there are any papers or news about it?

Here for example a light curve of a star with large spots: https://static.zooniverse.org/www.pl...starspots2.png

Regards.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Life would probably adapt quite readily to such fluctuations. If you check the brightness scale used, I think you will find the brightness varies by less than 1% deviation from mean. The potential for huge flares might be of much more concern

[andrew s]

I agree I doubt the brightness variations would be the real issue. However, if the y were associated with large flares and hence violent stellar winds that might be a different matter.

Regards Andrew

[Stub Mandrel]

For comparison I found a site that says the sun's luminosity varies by 0.2% through a sunspot cycle.

I doubt that short-term changes (weeks or months) on a scale of a few percent would have more impact than changes in cloud cover. It could affect weather, but the effects would be averaged out by the atmosphere.

Longer term changes could affect climate, and may have done so on Earth.

[caballerodiez91]

Thank you for your answers! So, can we say that light curves of potentially habitable exoplanets usually have most of the dots at a similar height? (leaving aside the transits).

For example, these are the light curves of trappist, which i believe it has some spots.