English

Two temperate Earth- and Neptune-sized planets orbiting fully convective M dwarfs

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2026-01-12 v1

Abstract

As the diversity of exoplanets continues to grow, it is important to revisit assumptions about habitability and classical HZ definitions. In this work, we introduce an expanded 'temperate' zone, defined by instellation fluxes between 0.1<S/S<50.1<S/\mathrm{S}_\oplus<5, thus encompassing a broader range of potentially habitable worlds. We also introduce the TEMPOS survey, which aims to produce a catalogue of precise radii for temperate planets orbiting M dwarfs with Teff3400T_\mathrm{eff}\leq3400\, K. This work reports the discovery and characterisation of two planets in this temperate regime orbiting mid-type M dwarfs: TOI-6716\,b, a 0.98±0.07R0.98\pm0.07\,\mathrm{R}_\oplus planet orbiting its M4 host star (R=0.231±0.015RR_\star=0.231\,\pm0.015\mathrm{R}_\odot, M=0.223±0.011MM_\star=0.223\pm0.011\,\mathrm{M}_\odot, Teff=3110±80KT_\mathrm{eff}=3110\pm80\,\mathrm{K}) with a period P=4.71858980.0000041+0.0000054dP=4.7185898^{+0.0000054}_{-0.0000041}\,\mathrm{d}, and TOI-7384 b, a 3.56±0.21R3.56\pm0.21\,\mathrm{R}_\oplus planet orbiting an M4 (R=0.319±0.018RR_\star=0.319\,\pm0.018\mathrm{R}_\odot, M=0.318±0.016MM_\star=0.318\pm0.016\,\mathrm{M}_\odot, Teff=3185±75KT_\mathrm{eff}=3185\pm75\,\mathrm{K}) star every P=6.23402580.0000036+0.0000034dP=6.2340258^{+0.0000034}_{-0.0000036}\,\mathrm{d}. The radii of TOI-6716 b and TOI-7384 b have precisions of 6.8%6.8\% and 5.9%5.9\% respectively. We validate these planets with multi-band ground-based photometric observations, high-resolution imaging and statistical analyses. We find these planets to have instellation fluxes close to the inner (hotter) edge of the temperate zone, with 4.4±1.1S4.4\pm1.1\,\mathrm{S}_\oplus and 4.9±1.1S4.9\pm1.1\,\mathrm{S}_\oplus for TOI-6716 b and TOI-7384 b respectively. Also, with a predicted TSM similar to the TRAPPIST-1 planets, TOI-6716 b is likely to be a good rocky-world JWST target, should it have retained its atmosphere.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.05799,
  title  = {Two temperate Earth- and Neptune-sized planets orbiting fully convective M dwarfs},
  author = {Madison G. Scott and Georgina Dransfield and Mathilde Timmermans and Amaury H. M. J. Triaud and Benjamin V. Rackham and Khalid Barkaoui and Adam J. Burgasser and Karen A. Collins and Michaël Gillon and Steve B. Howell and Alan M. Levine and Francisco J. Pozuelos and Keivan G. Stassun and Carl Ziegler and Yilen Gomez Maqueo Chew and Catherine A. Clark and Yasmin Davis and Fatemeh Davoudi and Tansu Daylan and Brice-Olivier Demory and Dax Feliz and Akihiko Fukui and Maximilian N. Günther and Emmanuël Jehin and Florian Lienhard and Andrew W. Mann and Clàudia Janó Muñoz and Norio Narita and Peter P. Pedersen and Richard P. Schwarz and Avi Shporer and Abderahmane Soubkiou and Sebastián Zúñiga-Fernández},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.05799},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

22 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:57:45.806Z