Eyeball Earths

Earth-sized planets found in the habitable-zones of low-mass stars are likely to become tidally locked to the star, with one side baked in perpetual sunlight and other trapped in an eternal night. These so-called "Eyeball Earths" turn out to be extremely common and some famous examples include Proxima b and the planets around TRAPPIST-1. Here, we explain why this tidal locking happens and what it means for the potential habitability of these alien worlds.

::More about this Video::

► "Discovery of a Planet around our Nearest Star: Proxima b" Cool Worlds video by Dr Guillem Anglada:    • Discovery of a Planet around our Near...  
► "Proxima b: Transits, Habitability & How to Get There!" Cool Worlds video by Prof Kipping:    • Proxima b: Transits, Habitability & H...  
► Gillon et al. (2017), "Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1": www.nature.com/nature/journal/v542/n7642/full/natu…
► Video of zonal winds on a tidally locked planet taken from Merlis & Schneider (2010), "Atmospheric dynamics of Earth-like tidally locked aquaplanets": arxiv.org/abs/1001.5117
► Leconte et al. (2015), "Asynchronous rotation of Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone of lower-mass stars": science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6222/632
► Cool Worlds Lab website: coolworlds.astro.columbia.edu/
► Columbia University Department of Astronomy: www.astro.columbia.edu/
► Outro music by Daft Punk "Harder, Better, Stronger, Faster": www.daftpunk.com/ and smarturl.it/DaftPunkiTunes

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