Related papers: A target list for searching for habitable exomoons
Exomoons are the natural satellites of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, of which there are currently no confirmed examples. We present new observations of a candidate exomoon associated with Kepler-1625b using the Hubble…
In the near future there will be launched space missions (e.g. COROT, KEPLER), designed to detect Earth-like extrasolar planets. The orbital elements of these (still hypothetic) planets will contain some uncertainties, that can only be…
Recently, Teachey, Kipping, and Schmitt (2018) reported the detection of a candidate exomoon, tentatively designated Kepler-1625b I, around a giant planet in the Kepler field. The candidate exomoon would be about the size and mass of…
Planets composed of large quantities of water that reside in the habitable zone are expected to have distinct geophysics and geochemistry of their surfaces and atmospheres. We explore these properties motivated by two key questions: whether…
The Kepler Mission has discovered thousands of exoplanets and revolutionized our understanding of their population. This large, homogeneous catalog of discoveries has enabled rigorous studies of the occurrence rate of exoplanets and…
Habitability is usually defined as the requirement for a terrestrial planet's atmosphere to sustain liquid water. This definition can be complemented by the dynamical requirement that other planets in the system do not gravitationally…
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…
Ongoing and future space missions aim to identify potentially habitable planets in our Solar System and beyond. Planetary habitability is determined not only by a planet's current stellar insolation and atmospheric properties, but also by…
A habitable zone of a star is defined as a range of orbits within which a rocky planet can support liquid water on its surface. The most intriguing question driving the search for habitable planets is whether they host life. But is the age…
Recent studies have shown that large exomoons can form in the accretion disks around super-Jovian extrasolar planets. These planets are abundant at about 1 AU from Sun-like stars, which makes their putative moons interesting for studies of…
With the detection of extrasolar moons (exomoons) on the horizon, it is important to consider their potential for habitability. If we consider the circumstellar Habitable Zone (HZ, often described in terms of planet semi-major axis and…
Earth-like planets in the habitable zone (HZ) of M-dwarfs have recently been targeted in the search for exomoons. We study the stability and lifetime of large (Luna-like) moons, accounting for the effects of 3-body interactions and tidal…
The habitability of exoplanets can be strongly influenced by the presence of an exomoon, and in some cases the exomoon itself could be a possible place for life to develop. For moons outside of the habitable zone, significant tidal heating…
It is currently unknown how common life is on exoplanets, or how long planets can remain viable for life. To date, we have a superficial notion of habitability, a necessary first step, but so far lacking an understanding of the detailed…
We present a comprehensive multivariate statistical analysis of 517 exoplanets from the NASA Exoplanet Archive to identify potentially habitable worlds and quantify detection bias in current surveys. Using eight key parameters (planetary…
Giant planets in the habitable zone may host exomoons with conditions conducive to life. In this paper we describe a method by which the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) could detect such moons: broadband reflected-light lunar eclipses…
A new Statistical-likelihood Exo-Planetary Habitability Index (SEPHI) is presented. It has been developed to cover the current and future features required for a classification scheme disentangling whether any discovered exoplanet is…
The potential habitability of an exoplanet is traditionally assessed by determining if its orbit falls within the circumstellar `habitable zone' of its star, defined as the distance at which water could be liquid on the surface of a planet…
We explore the astrobiological significance of F-type stars of spectral type between F5 V and F9.5 V, which possess Jupiter-type planets within or close to their climatological habitable zones. These planets, or at least a subset of those,…
As of 2025, over 6000 planets are known to orbit stars other than our Sun. We can measure their sizes and orbital periods, infer their masses and temperatures, and constrain their compositions. Based on these data, about 1% of extrasolar…