Terraforming Venus

[Strathos]

I would be 108 years old, if I was born and raised on Venus!

Assuming you somehow survived the toxic atmosphere and boiling temperatures...

 

[Ophiolite]

There's a side to mainstream science that is kinda...dreamy and...what-if based, where there is a combination of some knowledge but also a very...rose colored idea of what is possible, that most everything would work out eventually or such.

But often reality comes to visit in new observations, such as here's the real picture of all those "earth like" worlds out there from a few years back -- they are mostly orbiting the vastly most common type of star, red dwarfs, and so would have to be very close in orbit near to these little cool stars, which means...

This --

Scientists have spotted the largest flare ever recorded from the sun's nearest neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri.
...
CU Boulder astrophysicist Meredith MacGregor explained that Proxima Centauri is a small but mighty star. It sits just four light-years or more than 20 trillion miles from our own sun and hosts at least two planets, one of which may look something like Earth. It's also a "red dwarf," the name for a class of stars that are unusually petite and dim.

Proxima Centauri has roughly one-eighth the mass of our own sun. But don't let that fool you.

In their new study, MacGregor and her colleagues observed Proxima Centauri for 40 hours using nine telescopes on the ground and in space. In the process, they got a surprise: Proxima Centauri ejected a flare, or a burst of radiation that begins near the surface of a star, that ranks as one of the most violent seen anywhere in the galaxy.

"The star went from normal to 14,000 times brighter when seen in ultraviolet wavelengths over the span of a few seconds," said MacGregor, an assistant professor at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA) and Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) at CU Boulder.

The team's findings hint at new physics that could change the way scientists think about stellar flares. They also don't bode well for any squishy organism brave enough to live near the volatile star.

"If there was life on the planet nearest to Proxima Centauri, it would have to look very different than anything on Earth," MacGregor said. "A human being on this planet would have a bad time."

Enormous flare from sun's nearest neighbor breaks records -- ScienceDaily

And this is how we are learning red dwarfs generally behave, where most exoplanets that have been found and imagined to be 'Earth like' by orbiting extremely close to those small cool stars will get...a lot of 'bad days'...

The coup de grâce --

"A lot of the exoplanets that we've found so far are around these types of stars," she said. "But the catch is that they're way more active than our sun. They flare much more frequently and intensely."
...
Crispy planet

In all, the observed flare was roughly 100 times more powerful than any similar flare seen from Earth's sun. [ -- yikes! -- ] Over time, such energy can strip away a planet's atmosphere and even expose life forms to deadly radiation.

That type of flare may not be a rare occurrence on Proxima Centauri. In addition to the big boom in May 2019, the researchers recorded many other flares during the 40 hours they spent watching the star.

"Proxima Centauri's planets are getting hit by something like this not once in a century, but at least once a day if not several times a day," MacGregor said.

---
So, this is how reality comes knocking on the door for the 'science fantasy' ideas. But we do enjoy science fantasy! It's fun to imagine. Just remember we are in science fiction territory.

And all that, coupled with this:

our sun seems oddly quiet and calm compared to other stars with similar mass, composition and rotation.

may explain the Fermi Paradox.

 

[Halbhh]

And all that, coupled with this:
may explain the Fermi Paradox.

Yes, that's one big factor, often important for liquid water zone planets. We don't yet have enough understanding of flaring. Astronomers are still observing flaring which surprises.

 

[Ophiolite]

We don't yet have enough understanding of flaring. Astronomers are still observing flaring which surprises.

I suspect this may be the consequence of two factors. The technology to efficiently observe a range of flare types, at diverse distances, has been available for a handful of decades, rather than a couple of centuries. The number of active astronomers has, I think, grown dramatically over recent years - e.g. 2021 compared with 1961. And perhaps a third factor, the importance of flaring has only been recently recognised.

(When I say "recent" keep in mind that I am still reeling from the news that the Beatles have split up.)