Nearly 50 Rocky Exoplanets in the Habitable Zone: A Census Guiding JWST Observations

To the point

Led by Professor Lisa Kaltenegger at Cornell, researchers used Gaia and NASA's Exoplanet Archive to identify about 50 rocky exoplanets in the habitable zone likely to sustain liquid water, plus 24 in a tighter 3D habitable zone, including Proxima Centauri b and TRAPPIST-1 d, e, f and g and LHS 1140 b, and they examine how eccentric orbits and tidal heating affect habitability, note targets best observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, reference a Project Hail Mary scenario from Andy Weir, with Abigail Bohl emphasizing the goal of understanding how stellar energy sustains surface water at the inner and outer edges of the habitable zone.