The Latest in IT Security

Last month, the American Astronomical Societys 223rd meeting featured the announcement of a few breakthroughs: Using the Kepler space observatory, researchers had discovered a planet roughly the mass of Earth orbiting a star beyond our solar system, and with the Hubble telescope they had provided the first detailed look at the weather of a super Earth — a planet larger than ours but smaller than Neptune — in our galactic neighborhood. Rather than circling a big, hot, yellow sun like ours, they spin around small, cool, red stars called red dwarfs. Although not visible to the naked eye from Earth, these red dwarfs are the most populous stars in the Milky Way. And over the last year, a flurry of research has shown that red dwarf stars are also the best targets in the search for exoplanets that might support life.