Calculated by the lab
- Red-dwarf orbital flux
- Global climate values
- Simplified locked-world local temperature
👁️ Eyeball world
Place a slow-rotating world close to a red dwarf and inspect its fixed heating pattern.
A locked-world temperature pattern is shown, not a portrait of Proxima b.
Building the laboratory: star, orbit, planet, atmosphere...
What actually happens
Many red dwarfs have compact habitable zones where tides may drive planets toward synchronous rotation. With enough heat transport, such a world could retain a temperate region between a warm star-facing side and a cold dark side.
This scenario selects an M dwarf, a 0.16 AU orbit, and a very slow rotation input that activates the lab's locked-world approximation. The local temperature texture then concentrates heating near the substellar point while the headline temperature remains a simplified global result.
Proxima b may be tidally locked, but its spin state, atmosphere, oceans, and surface remain uncertain. Calling it an eyeball world is one possible interpretation, not an observation.
How the simulation unfolds
Each step is labeled so you can tell a calculated result from an explanatory visual or wider scientific context.
- Changed input
Move close to a red dwarf
The scenario selects an M dwarf, a close orbit, low tilt, and a very slow rotation rate.
- Computed
Heating follows longitude
The locked-world approximation computes a warmer substellar region and a colder far side.
- Illustrated
An eye-like pattern appears
Temperature color and stylized surface ice make the fixed heating geometry visible.
- Scientific context
Real outcomes depend on transport
Atmosphere and ocean circulation could redistribute heat in ways the local texture does not solve.
What is computed, illustrated, and not modeled
Shown to explain the result
- Eye-like ocean and ice pattern
- Fixed day and night geometry
Outside this model
- Tidal evolution
- Three-dimensional circulation
- Proxima b's actual atmosphere or surface
Model scope: The local pattern is a simplified locked-world approximation. It is not a circulation model or evidence about Proxima b's surface.