Travelers in the Night Eps. 353E & 354E: Peaceful Star & Martian Debris

Nov 30, 2025

Discover the wonders of our Sun as Dr. Grauer highlights its stability compared to other stars and its crucial role in supporting life on Earth. Explore the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 system, located 40 light-years away, and hear about the potential for habitability around its red dwarf star. Dive into the mystery of Martian Trojan asteroids, which may have formed from debris blasted off Mars during ancient impacts. New research reveals evidence connecting these asteroids to the planet's violent history. It's a cosmic journey you won't want to miss!

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INSIGHT

Our Sun's Calm Is Crucial

The Sun is unusually well-behaved compared to many other stars and supports life on Earth through steady energy output.
Studies of TRAPPIST-1 show red dwarf planets face strong atmospheric loss and radiation, making habitability far less likely than Earth's.

INSIGHT

Red Dwarf Habitable Zones Are Risky

TRAPPIST-1's close-orbiting planets face intense stellar winds and high-energy radiation that threaten their atmospheres.
Researchers Lingam, Loeb, and Garraffo find these factors make TRAPPIST-1 planets, including 1e, far less likely to be habitable than Earth.

ANECDOTE

Martian Trojans Tell A Martian Origin Story

Martian Trojan asteroids occupy stable Lagrange points 60 degrees ahead and behind Mars and were suspected to originate elsewhere.
Polishook's team used spectral measurements and simulations to argue seven Trojans are ejecta from a billion-year-old Martian impact.

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Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( @Nmcanopus ) is an observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006. travelersinthenight.org

From September 2025.

Today's 2 topics:

- The Sun is our very own well behaved star. It rises and sets in our sky every day and powers and makes possible all life forms on planet Earth. A new appreciation for our Sun is growing as we learn more about other suns and their families of planets. The Trappist-1 system of 7 planets orbits a dim M type red dwarf star about 40 light years away in the constellation of Aquarius. Recently, Dr. Manasvi Lingam and Dr. Abraham Loeb of Harvard University have calculated the likelihood that planets orbiting red dwarf stars are able to possess an atmosphere conducive to life.

- Martian Trojan asteroids have stable orbits around the Sun, leading and trailing the red planet by 60 degrees, where the Sun's and Mars's gravity are balanced. For some time astronomers have considered it unlikely that these asteroids wandered in from the asteroid belt. Recently, Dr. David Polishook of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel led a group of researchers who published a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy which sets forth evidence that a group of 7 Martian Trojan Asteroids were blasted from the Martian surface when a large asteroid impacted the red planet early in the history of the solar system.

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