Life on planet Earth is certainly a unique phenomenon. However, it is difficult to assume that nowhere else in the Universe, only in the visible part of which there are billions of stars, conditions for the origin and development of certain forms of living matter have not developed. Discovering life beyond the planet Earth is the golden dream of any astronomer. In addition, due to the vulnerability to many cosmic threats, sooner or later humanity will have to look for other homes in the Universe.
No wonder the closest stars to the Sun are studied so scrupulously, one of which is Wolf 359.
Where the star is located
By brightness, stars are classified as follows: the brightest are luminaries of magnitude 1, magnitude 2 are slightly dimmer, etc. Asterisks of magnitude 6 are the last ones visible to the naked eye. 7, 8 and further values are available only to observers armed with optical instruments. Wolf 359 - luminary 13, 5stellar magnitude, so you can't just admire it. It is located in the constellation Leo. For those who have the opportunity to use astronomical instruments for observing stars, its coordinates are:
- right ascension 10 hours 56 minutes 29.2 seconds;
- declination +7 degrees 0 minutes 53 seconds.
Wolf 359 is one of the closest stars to our star, located at a distance of only about 8 light years from it (the distance that a beam of light in vacuum flies in 365 Earth days, or about 9,460,800,000,000 km).
Space invisible
One of the types of stars is red dwarfs. Wolf 359 belongs to this class. What are these luminaries and why are they interesting?
Looking at the night sky with the naked eye, we will not see a single star - a representative of this family. Meanwhile, the luminaries of this particular type are most of all in space. There are far more of them than the stars that we can see. It's all about their small size and very weak luminosity.
Red dwarfs are luminaries that have been “deprived” of the source material. Their mass is in the range from 7 to 30% of the solar mass. Interestingly, due to their small size, they are real space centenarians. The pressure and temperatures created in the cores of such stars are only sufficient for a sluggish thermonuclear reaction of heavy hydrogen isotopes. Thanks to this, Wolf 359 consumes its nuclear fuel extremely slowly. The lifetime of red dwarfsby some estimates, it can reach a trillion years, and this is tens of thousands of times longer than the century allotted for bright giants.
Red dwarf planets are the perfect place to live
Why are red dwarfs like Wolf 359 interesting for scientists? On the planets revolving around them, it is assumed that ideal conditions are created for the emergence and development of life. In order for a highly organized life to develop from a randomly formed fissile molecule, time is needed. Fixing successful genetic mutations, multi-stage natural selection require millions and millions of years.
This is hardly possible on satellite planets, for example, blue giants. In the hot interiors of monster stars with huge masses, pressure and temperature create conditions for the rapid burning of all available reserves of thermonuclear fuel. The life of cosmic colossi is short-lived, and even changeable, states change one after another. Here the luminary swells up like a balloon, increasing in size hundreds of thousands of times, absorbing in the sizzling waves of the raging plasma that until recently peacefully revolved around the planet with their satellites. And then the rays of a miniature white dwarf (all that eventually remains of a giant) barely reach the icy planets without heat and light on the outskirts of this dying system.
Another thing is planets in red dwarf systems: millions and billions of years of stable, unchanging conditions.
Small and all alone
Our star is interesting for its loneliness. Reddwarfs are almost never found in space without an "escort". Double, triple (such as, for example, the Alpha Centauri system) families are the norm for red dwarfs, but not for the Wolf 359 star. Its environment, or rather, its complete absence, came as a surprise to astronomers.
This atypical loneliness may be partly due to her more than modest size.
The diameter of Wolf 359 is about 15% of the sun, only about 200 thousand kilometers, while the mass is a little more than 10% of the mass of our star. With such a modest size, the presence of large satellites would certainly have shown itself. And if there are planets, then, apparently, no heavier than the Earth's Moon.
Another feature of Wolf 359 is its periodicity. In a few minutes, it can become almost twice as bright. Increased activity is observed for several seconds, sometimes minutes, and then begins to fade away. However, this is more likely not a feature, but a rule for red dwarfs, and, according to some astrophysicists, the presence of powerful (not in size) magnetic fields in this type of star is to blame for this.
