Related papers: A Catalog of Habitable Zone Exoplanets

In the near future we will have ground- and space-based telescopes that are designed to observe and characterize Earth-like planets. While attention is focused on exoplanets orbiting main sequence stars, more than 150 exoplanets have…

The Kepler Mission is monitoring the brightness of ~150,000 stars searching for evidence of planetary transits. As part of the "Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler" (HEK) project, we report a planetary system with two confirmed planets and one…

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…

Astronomers have always wanted to know whether there are other planets around other stars that support life like our Earth. The search for life elsewhere has led us to new findings of extreme planetary conditions that humans were unaware…

K2 space observations recently found that three super-Earths transit the nearby M dwarf K2-3. The apparent brightness and the small physical radius of their host star rank these planets amongst the most favourable for follow-up…

Given the very close proximity of their habitable zones, brown dwarfs represent high-value targets in the search for nearby transiting habitable planets that may be suitable for follow-up occultation spectroscopy. In this paper we develop…

In this work is investigated the possibility of close-binary star systems having Earth-size planets within their habitable zones. First, we selected all known close-binary systems with confirmed planets (totaling 22 systems) to calculate…

Future direct imaging space telescopes, such as NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), will be the first capable of both detecting and characterizing terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zones (HZ) of nearby Sun-like stars. Since…

To be habitable, a world (planet or moon) does not need to be located in the stellar habitable zone (HZ), and worlds in the HZ are not necessarily habitable. Here, we illustrate how tidal heating can render terrestrial or icy worlds…

Doppler measurements of two G-type main-sequence stars, HD210277 and HD168443, reveal Keplerian variations that imply the presence of companions with masses (M sin i) of 1.28 and 5.04 M_Jup and orbital periods of 437 d and 58 d,…

We present the discovery of a super-earth-sized planet in or near the habitable zone of a sun-like star. The host is Kepler-69, a 13.7 mag G4V-type star. We detect two periodic sets of transit signals in the three-year flux time series of…

We propose to use Kepler in 2-wheel mode to conduct a detailed search for Earth-sized planets orbiting ultra-cool stars and brown dwarfs (spectral types from M7 to L3). This population of objects presents several advantages for exoplanet…

HARPS and it Kepler results indicate that half of solar-type stars host planets with periods P<100 d and masses M < 30 M_E. These super Earth systems are compact and dynamically cold. Here we investigate the stability of the super Earth…

The search for life in the universe is currently focused on Earth-analog planets. However, we should be prepared to find a diversity of terrestrial exoplanets not only in terms of host star but also in terms of surface environment.…

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,…

All the giant planets in the solar system host a large number of natural satellites. Moons in extrasolar systems are difficult to detect, but a Neptune-sized exomoon candidate has been recently found around a Jupiter-sized planet in the…

Because of their large numbers, low mass stars may be the most abundant planet hosts in our Galaxy. Furthermore, terrestrial planets in the habitable zones (HZs) around M-dwarfs can potentially be characterized in the near future and hence…

The census of exoplanets is incomplete for orbital distances larger than 1 AU. Here, we present 41 long-period planet candidates in 38 systems identified by Planet Hunters based on Kepler archival data (Q0-Q17). Among them, 17 exhibit only…

Previous attempts to describe circumbinary habitable zones have been concerned with the spatial extent of the zone, calculated analytically according to the combined radiation field of both stars. By contrast to these "spatial HZs", we…

F-type star--planet systems represent an intriguing case for habitability studies. Although F-type stars spend considerably less time on the main-sequence than G, K, and M-type stars, they still offer a unique set of features, allowing for…