Overview
- A Cornell-led study in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society identifies 45 rocky planets in their stars’ habitable zones, with a stricter core of 24 worlds in a tighter 3D habitable zone.
- Top targets include planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system plus Proxima Centauri b, LHS 1140 b, and TOI-715 b, with TRAPPIST-1 e and TOI-715 b flagged as strong near-term candidates for detailed checks.
- The team used ESA’s Gaia data and the NASA Exoplanet Archive and scored planets by the stellar energy they receive, system age, orbital shape, radiation environment, and how feasible they are to observe.
- The catalogue maps each target to the best observing method to search for atmospheres using today’s James Webb Space Telescope and future platforms such as the Roman Space Telescope, the Extremely Large Telescope, and the Habitable Worlds Observatory.
- Habitable zone means the range where liquid water could exist, yet no listed planet has a confirmed atmosphere or biosignature and many orbit red dwarfs that can blast planets with flares, so confirmation depends on follow-up spectroscopy.