Graduate student Aomawa Shields, along with a team of other UWAB researchers, has recently published research arguing that planets orbiting cooler stars are less likely to turn into icy “snowball” worlds. The explanation behind this apparent paradox is that cool stars emit more longer-wavelength, near-infrared light, which is readily absorbed by a planet, heating it up. By comparison, hot stars emit more high-energy visible and UV light. If a planet is already icy, it will easily reflect these wavelengths, cooling the planet and leading to more ice, in a cycle called “ice-albedo feedback”. Shield’s research will be released in the August issue of Astrobiology.
Read the UW News release here.