A tidally locked planet would be neat if civilization could exist there. One side would be constantly hot, and the other would be frozen, but there would exist a temperate climate zone in a longitudinal ring connecting the poles. Almost like a ring planet from Halo.

I remember an interesting astrobotany paper hypothesizing that if plants were to evolve on a red dwarf planet, there would be selective pressure for them to be black rather than green (for maximum light absorption, as most light would be infrared).

You could also put solar up along the edge and even on the hot side and have tons of energy with no need for storage. It’d be like a poor man’s Dyson sphere.

Neat idea. Imagine getting solar/thermal energy from one half of the planet, and housing supercomputers and genetic databanks on the cold side, with population centers living in the temperate ring.

Or, the rich people could live in the temperate zone while the poor people choose between burning and freezing. Brb, writing a dystopian sci-fi.

> Brb, writing a dystopian sci-fi.

Make sure to give Proxima by Baxter a read.

super interesting. it also seems like there are tons of tidally locked planets.

wouldn't this lead to basically having constant hurricane strength winds in the "temperate" zone though

Such a planet would likely suffer from extreme weather to a level which would make the planet incompatible with the life forms which thrive on Earth.

Some recent research suggests these stars may flare primarily at the poles, unlike our sun: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/red-dwarfs-arent-...