Related papers: A Habitable-Zone Earth-Sized Planet Rescued from F…

We present the validation and characterization of Kepler-61b: a 2.15 R_Earth planet orbiting near the inner edge of the habitable zone of a low-mass star. Our characterization of the host star Kepler-61 is based upon a comparison with the…

Kepler-452b is currently the best example of an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a sun-like star, a type of planet whose number of detections is expected to increase in the future. Searching for biosignatures in the supposedly…

Kepler-22b is the first transiting planet to have been detected in the habitable-zone of its host star. At 2.4 Earth radii, Kepler-22b is too large to be considered an Earth-analog, but should the planet host a moon large enough to maintain…

Since there are several ways planets can survive the giant phase of the host star, we examine the habitability and detection of planets orbiting white dwarfs. As a white dwarf cools from 6000 K to 4000 K, a planet orbiting at 0.01 AU would…

The prime Kepler mission revealed that small planets (<4 R_earth) are common, especially around low-mass M dwarfs. K2, the re-purposed Kepler mission, continues this exploration of small planets around small stars. Here we combine K2…

Discoveries from the prime Kepler mission demonstrated that small planets (< 3 Earth-radii) are common outcomes of planet formation. While Kepler detected many such planets, all but a handful orbit faint, distant stars and are not amenable…

Since the discovery of the first extrasolar giant planets around Sun-like stars, evolving observational capabilities have brought us closer to the detection of true Earth analogues. The size of an exoplanet can be determined when it…

Earth-scale planets in the classical habitable zone (HZ) are more likely to be habitable if they possess active geophysics. Without a constant internal energy source, planets cool as they age, eventually terminating tectonic activity and…

Terrestrial planets are more likely to be detected if they orbit M dwarfs due to the favorable planet/star size and mass ratios. However, M dwarf habitable zones are significantly closer to the star than the one around our Sun, which leads…

We continue to investigate the binary system Kepler-16, consisting of a K-type main-sequence star, a red dwarf, and a circumbinary Saturnian planet. As part of our study, we describe the system's habitable zone based on different climate…

Early time-series photometry from NASA's Kepler spacecraft has revealed a planet transiting the star we term Kepler-4, at RA = 19h02m27.68s, Dec = +50:08:08.7. The planet has an orbital period of 3.213 days and shows transits with a…

Determining habitable zones in binary star systems can be a challenging task due to the combination of perturbed planetary orbits and varying stellar irradiation conditions. The concept of "dynamically informed habitable zones" allows us,…

NASA's Kepler Mission uses transit photometry to determine the frequency of earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. The mission reached a milestone toward meeting that goal: the discovery of its first rocky…

M dwarfs constitute more than 70% of the stars in the solar neighborhood. They are cooler and smaller than Sun-like stars and have less-massive disks which suggests that planets around these stars are more likely to be Neptune-size or…

The field of exoplanetary science has seen a dramatic improvement in sensitivity to terrestrial planets over recent years. Such discoveries have been a key feature of results from the {\it Kepler} mission which utilizes the transit method…

Kepler-730 is a planetary system hosting a statistically validated hot Jupiter in a 6.49-day orbit and an additional transiting candidate in a 2.85-day orbit. We use spectroscopic radial velocities from the APOGEE-2N instrument, Robo-AO…

The Kepler-186 system consists of five planets orbiting an early-M dwarf. The planets have physical radii of 1.0-1.50 R$_\oplus$ and orbital periods of 4 to 130 days. The $1.1~$R$_\oplus$ Kepler-186f with a period of 130 days is of…

We present the results of an extensive study of the detectability of Earth-sized planets and super-Earths in the habitable zones of cool and low-mass stars using transit timing variation method. We have considered a system consisting of a…

Kepler-454 (KOI-273) is a relatively bright (V = 11.69 mag), Sun-like starthat hosts a transiting planet candidate in a 10.6 d orbit. From spectroscopy, we estimate the stellar temperature to be 5687 +/- 50 K, its metallicity to be [m/H] =…

We report on the validation of two planets orbiting the nearby (36pc) M2 dwarf TOI-1266 observed by the TESS mission. The inner planet is sub-Neptune-sized ($R=2.46 \pm 0.08 R_\oplus$) with an orbital period of 10.9 days. The outer planet…