A recent news article from NOVA discusses the potential for habitable worlds around K-dwarf stars. The story focuses on the work of Giada Arney (NASA Goddard SFC and NASA NExSS Virtual Planetary Laboratory), lead author of a new study that compares the potential for life on K dwarfs to other types of stars, such as M dwarfs, which have featured in many previous habitability studies.

Click here to read the article from NOVA.

The study, “The K Dwarf Advantage for Biosignatures on Directly Imaged Exoplanets,” was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The work was supported by the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS).  NExSS is a NASA  research coordination network supported in part by the  NASA Astrobiology Program. This program element is shared between NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) and the Astrophysics Division.