Related papers: The Galactic Habitable Zone I. Galactic Chemical E…

How do habitable environments arise and evolve within the context of their planetary systems? This is one fundamental question, and it can be addressed partly by identifying how planets in habitable zones obtain water. Historically,…

The dominant paradigm in assigning "habitability"' to terrestrial planets is to define a circumstellar habitable zone: the locus of orbital radii in which the planet is neither too hot nor too cold for life as we know it. One dimensional…

We discuss the difficulties of forming earth-like planets in metal-poor environments, such as those prevailing in the Galactic halo (Pop II), the Magellanic Clouds, and the early universe. We suggest that, with less heavy elements…

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…

By now, observations of exoplanets have found more than 50 binary star systems hosting 71 planets. We expect these numbers to increase as more than 70% of the main sequence stars in the solar neighborhood are members of binary or multiple…

We present a new investigation of the habitability of the Milky Way bulge, that expands previous studies on the Galactic Habitable Zone. We discuss existing knowledge on the abundance of planets in the bulge, metallicity and the possible…

The habitability of a planet depends on various factors, such as delivery of water during the formation, the co-evolution of the interior and the atmosphere, as well as the stellar irradiation which changes in time. Since an unknown number…

Identifying terrestrial planets in the habitable zones (HZs) of other stars is one of the primary goals of ongoing radial velocity and transit exoplanet surveys and proposed future space missions. Most current estimates of the boundaries of…

Conventionally, a habitable planet is one that can support liquid water on its surface. Habitability depends on temperature, which is set by insolation and the greenhouse effect, due mainly to CO2 and water vapor. The CO2 level is increased…

Whether binaries can harbor potentially habitable planets depends on several factors including the physical properties and the orbital characteristics of the binary system. While the former determines the location of the habitable zone…

We explore the minimum distance from a host star where an exoplanet could potentially be habitable in order not to discard close-in rocky exoplanets for follow-up observations. We find that the inner edge of the Habitable Zone for hot…

Massive stars dominate the radiative and mechanical feedback of young stellar populations, yet their intense ultraviolet fields and strong winds are typically presumed to preclude Earth-like habitability. We quantify this expectation by…

During the course of stellar evolution, the location and width of the habitable zone changes as the luminosity and radius of the star evolves. The duration of habitability for a planet located at a given distance from a star is greatly…

The habitable zone is the main tool that mission architectures utilize to select potentially habitable planets for follow up spectroscopic observation. Given its importance, the precise size and location of the habitable zone remains a hot…

The main goal of this work is to study element ratios that are important for the formation of planets of different masses. We study potential correlations between the existence of planetary companions and the relative elemental abundances…

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…

A star will become brighter and brighter with stellar evolution, and the distance of its habitable zone will become farther and farther. Some planets outside the habitable zone of a host star during the main sequence phase may enter the…

Earth will become uninhabitable within 2-3 Gyr as a result of the moving boundaries of the habitable zone caused by the increasing luminosity of the Sun. Predictions about the future of habitable conditions on Earth include a decline in…

The recent detection of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, Trappist-1 and many other nearby M-type stars has led to speculations, whether liquid water and life actually exist on these planets. To a large extent,…

Motivated by the possibility that different versions of the laws of physics could be realized within other universes, this paper delineates the galactic parameters that allow for habitable planets and revisits constraints on the amplitude…