Image description
Another star similar to
Sun, but a little
bit more massive.
The star is somehow too bright for it's spectral
type, it is probably leaving the main sequence to become a giant.
The planets that were too far from the habitable zone (too cold)
now have a chance to heat up.
In our example, we see a world that
was frozen last 6 billion years (Beta Hydri is estimated to be 6.7
billion years old) and now becomes habitable zone. Unfortunately
there is no enough time for intelligent life to evolve from now
on, because compared with the "speed" of life evolution,
this star's future evolution will be much faster (1.3 billion years
to become a red giant).
Still, last 6 billion years were enough
for a life to evolve on some of planets in previous habitable zone
of this system. If there is intelligent life out there, right now
they are probably in a move to this cold planet we see on the picture. |
