We’ve got a raging nerd love for the Kepler satellite here at Gamma Squad and for excellent reason. Kepler is proving that there are billions of planets out there just waiting for us to explore/unleash zombie attacks on/blow up for giggles.
Unfortunately, we won’t be able to move to the majority of them: astrobiologists have demonstrated red dwarf stars can’t support life.
Why? To have seasons, and thus keep things from being awful all the time, planets need to have axial tilt. Star like our sun make it easy for the Earth to maintain a 23 degree tilt: hence, why Earth’s climate is mild and lacking in massive storms and baking heat.
Red dwarf stars tend to eradicate this tilt, causing haywire climates and ultimately killing life.
So in other words, Krypton was screwed anyway.
[ via the Houses of El at io9 ]
image courtesy NASA