Re: Life around an M-class star

"Izenberg, Noam" wrote:
> 
> With the large number of colony worlds residing around M-class stars
> (courtesy Nyrath the Amazing), I wanted to do some thinking about what
> life would be like unter a bloated, blood-red sun. We did not evolve
> under that spectrum, and my guess is our psychesand bodies are not
> terribly well attuned to living in a well lit darkroom.

	Oh, I didn't deal you as dirty a card as all that!
	I'm not that mean!

	From WORLD-BUILDING: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO CONSTRUCTING
	STAR SYSTEMS AND LIFE-SUPPORTING PLANETS	
	by Stephen L. Gillett (ISBN 0-89879-707-1)

"(Star) color tends from red towards blue with increasing temperature.
Because of this, we often speak of "red stars" or "blue stars." These
names, though, are largely misnomers in terms of what the eye
would actually see.  They just refer to the wavelength bias.  Even
a "cool" "red" star is extraordinarily bright and hot by everyday
standards.  A typical "red" dwarf, for example, which make up the
bulk of the stars in the universe, has a temperature of about 3000K,
about the same as a filament in an ordinary incandescent light.
The star's light won't look red at all, and the eye is sufficiently
adaptable that scenes will look normal, just as things look perfectly
normal by incandescent light on Earth.	The temperature of something
truly "red" - a charcoal fire or glowing stovetop, say - is more
like 1000K.  Quite a few science fiction stories have spoken of the
lurid light of a red sun: Robert L. Forward in ROCHEWORLD, Poul
Anderson in TRADER TO THE STARS, and many others.  But this "local
color" is just not true!"

	But, Mr. Izenberg, if I can possibly dig up some farther
	stars for New Israel, I'll present them to you.
	It's just that Epsilon Indi is so deep in everybody
	else's territory.