ASK Space
Our experts answer your questions © NASA /JPL-Caltech EXOPLANETS
Do smaller stars generally host smaller planets?
The Sun is a typical star, but many smaller stars exist in the universe. Red dwarfs are the smallest stars, measuring about 10 to 50 per cent the size of the Sun. Over the past two decades, many planets have been detected around such red dwarf stars. Surprisingly, these worlds are not much different from those found around Sun-like stars. Many of them are rocky, Earth-like planets, like, for example, the seven planets detected around the TRAPPIST-1 star and the two planets around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.
On the other hand, a significant fraction of them are large, gas giants like Jupiter. In fact, some red dwarf stars…
