Why Earth Sucks Compared to the Planet Hestia

Our hottest update for Star Birds is out now! Earth seems like a paradise for  life but it's actually kind of mid.

Big parts of it are covered by hostile  deserts of ice, fire, rock or darkness. Could there be a planet that is not just more suitable for life, but ideal?

So perfect for the emergence of life, filled with not just biomass but also biodiversity that Earth is  a barren desert compared to them.

As we have begun to look deep into our galaxy  we’ve found a new and weird type of planet: Superearths, planets larger than Earth that have the potential to not only host  life but to be superhabitable.

Let's take all the science on exoplanets we have and imagine a perfect world: Hestia – after the Greek goddess of the comfy home – the best possible  planet for life in the universe.

First of all, we want a perfect star. The Perfect Star for the Perfect World The perfect world needs a perfect star –  but that may not be a yellow dwarf like our sun because they die in under 10 billion  years and keep getting hotter as they age.

70% of the window for life  on earth has already passed. Earth has a mere couple of billion years left before the sun ends it all.

70% of stars are red dwarfs. Pretty small and alive for trillions  of years, basically forever. Since they’re not that bright  and hot, their habitable zones, where water can be liquid,  are pretty close to them.

Which makes it very likely that  their planets are tidally locked, one hemisphere a hot desert  and the other an icy hell.

Also, young red dwarfs tend  to vomit deadly radiation that sterilizes their planets  or boils their oceans away.

The perfect stars for life might be orange dwarfs. In the goldilocks zone between red and yellow  dwarfs, their energy output is very stable, radiation tends to be less  aggressive and most importantly: They live up to 70 billion years, giving life  plenty of time to emerge, evolve and thrive.

So here’s our perfect star: an orange dwarf, born 3 billion years ago in a  calm galactic neighbourhood.