Mapping Nearby Rocky Exoplanets in Habitable Zones: A 45-Planet Catalogue to Inform Habitability and Observational Targeting

To the point

Led by Lisa Kaltenegger, the team used Gaia data and NASA’s Exoplanet Archive to identify about 45 rocky planets in the habitable zone that could host life, including Proxima Centauri b and several TRAPPIST-1 planets, with a tighter 24‑planet subset to test heat tolerance and a focus on atmosphere retention and orbital shape as key factors, noting that TRAPPIST‑1 e and TOI‑715 b are promising JWST targets and mapping nearby rocky worlds by transit or wobble to guide future missions such as JWST, the Roman Space Telescope, the ELT, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, and the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets, while Gillis Lowry, Lucas Lawrence, and Abigail Bohl point out that our Solar System provides a benchmark to interpret potential habitability and energy limits, all published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society to direct life searches toward the most promising nearby worlds despite remaining uncertainties about atmospheres and climates.