Talk:List of potentially habitable exoplanets

Word Choice Suggestion
Consider this sentence:

HD 85512 b was initially estimated to be potentially habitable, but updated models for the boundaries of the habitable zone placed the planet interior to the HZ, and it is now considered non-habitable.

The word "interior" seems to mean inside the zone, instead of closer to the star than the zone, but I cannot think of a better way to say it.

Gil (talk) 09:55, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Be exoplanet
A new potentially habitable exoplanet car TOI 700 d has been recently discovered by Tess and so the list of planets inside the habitable zone needs to be updated Omnipotentunknown00 (talk) 20:37, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Kepler-1649c
Please add this exoplanet to the list.

2020 in science has this:


 * NASA reports the discovery of Kepler-1649c, an exoplanet that, according to Jeff Coughlin, the director of SETI's K2 Science Office, is closer to Earth in size and likely temperature than any other world yet found in data from the Kepler Space Telescope. The planet was originally deemed a false positive by Kepler's robovetter algorithm, highlighting the value of human inspection of planet candidates even as automated techniques improve.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 15:05, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Kepler-155c and 235e
There are still some Kepler planets not shown in the list, like Kepler-155c, Kepler-235e and Kepler-1649c but I am unsure where to put 155c and 235e. Could one of you classify them? Kepler-1229b talk — Preceding undated comment added 18:57, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * (This was continued in the below section .) SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 21:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Orphaned references in List of potentially habitable exoplanets
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of List of potentially habitable exoplanets's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "exoplanet.eu": From List of exoplanets discovered using the Kepler space telescope: Exoplanet.eu, "Kepler-41" From Kepler-1649:  From Kepler-1625: exoplanet.eu: Planet Kepler-1625 b From 51 Eridani b:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 03:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Conservative/optimistic division
Responding to 's recent edit: If this list is supposed to be exactly the same as the HEC list, then all the planets not listed by HEC should be removed (which I would probably be fine with TBH). The division into conservative/optimistic samples is based on the likelihood of being rocky, which HEC determines based solely on the radius and mass (which is often a minimum mass). If there is additional information on a planet's composition or true mass that should be taken into account here; at the very least LHS 1140 b, which is confirmed to be rocky, shouldn't be listed in the optimistic sample of probably-mini-Neptunes. However, I'd be fine with removing the conservative/optimistic distinction for Wikipedia's list, which would simplify things. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Then I will be merging the conservative and optimistic tables. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 16:24, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And if this were the exact same as the HEC list, then it should be called "List of potentially habitable exoplanets from the HEC" . I would oppose renaming the list to that. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 18:21, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * So I will be removing the part that says "from the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog". 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 18:23, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Kepler-737b
Kepler-737b may be potentially habitable, but I do not know yet. I need a reliable source as well. When the planet was a candidate it was potentially habitable. Could you tell me if this planet should be in this list? 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 16:57, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't add a planet to the list just because it was considered potentially habitable before it was confirmed; parameters often change significantly when a Kepler candidate is confirmed, an example being KOI-3138.01/Kepler-1649b. In this case HEC doesn't list the planet, and hzgallery.org places it interior to the habitable zone. (Same goes for the planets you mentioned above:, ) SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 17:16, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, the following image lists them both as being potentially habitable. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 17:39, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

File:PIA19827-Kepler-SmallPlanets-HabitableZone-20150723.jpg
 * I suspect that's based on the KOI data. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 18:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 18:26, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Then again, many of the potentially habitable planets recognized by HEC are in the image. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 18:46, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Looking into it, that image seems to have been released with the discovery of Kepler-452b. The discovery paper lists the other 9 planets in the image as small habitable zone planets, but it doesn't mention Kepler-155c or Kepler-235e. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. According to Open Exoplanet Catalogue, it is well within the habitable zone. It is less than 2x the radius of earth and has a higher density than 2 g/cm3. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jtadesse (talk • contribs) 19:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a possible HZ estimate, so we don't know for sure. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 02:55, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Kepler-991b
|hzgallery.org places the planet as being within the habitable zone. The planet has a radius of 0.227 Jupiter radii. Why is it not in the list? 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 17:43, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's slightly larger than 2.5 Earth radii, which is the upper limit for the list. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 18:27, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Then why not change the upper limit for the list? 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 18:31, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Because 2.5 Earth radii is the upper limit HEC uses and is already quite generous; any planet larger than that is virtually certain to be gaseous. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 18:36, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Again, this list should not be entirely based on the HEC. See above for more info. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 18:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * IMO it should be mostly based on the HEC (unless you know of another similar catalog?), and in any case it shouldn't list gaseous planets, since it's "List of potentially habitable exoplanets", not "List of exoplanets in the habitable zone". (In which case K2-3d and K2-18b should probably be moved to the "Previous candidates" section.) SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 18:54, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There could be other sources like https://www.hzgallery.org to help determine whether a planet is within the habitable zone. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 02:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, but that's not a pre-compiled list of potentially habitable planets like HEC is. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 15:55, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Remember that a rocky planet can be as large as 3x the radius of earth, depending on it's mass. We saw this with K2-18b, which is 2.7x the radius of earth, but has a density of 4.01 g/cm3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jtadesse (talk • contribs) 19:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yep. 🪐Kepler-1229b &#124; talk &#124; contribs🪐 14:30, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Recent re-addition of ESI
If you look at the talk page history, there seems to have been a consensus to not include ESI on this list (e.g. here). SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Pinging as well. ESI should not be in the article unless a new consensus is established. SevenSpheresCelestia (talk) 19:02, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Earth
Given the recent IPCC report, should Earth be removed from the list now or should we wait until 2028 or so? 68.107.189.97 (talk) 22:32, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

HabPlanetScore and ESIScore
FYI, and  have been nominated for deletion. Per the template documentation, these are related to this list? -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Star type colour coding
In the table the star type column is coloured with (at least) 3 different shades but there is no explanation of the meaning of these shades. Could one please be added? treesmill (talk) 09:20, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

"Standard Primary Habitability" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Standard Primary Habitability and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 1 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Beland (talk) 10:52, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

"Standard primary habitability" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Standard primary habitability and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 1 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Beland (talk) 10:54, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Wolf 1069 b
Add this planet to the list, it was discovered in 2023 and has characteristics of a potentially habitable planet InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 17:06, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ SevenSpheres (talk) 17:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

ESI calculations
Can someone calculate Earth similarity index for these planets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:14BA:9F01:1FC7:0:0:0:1 (talk) 17:13, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The problem with ESI is that there isn't a definite single way to do that. Everybody has its own way of doing it. For instance, you can do it with only the data that is well estimated like the illumination, planet mass and planet orbit. But then one might put different weight on each of these. I started to write a special subpage under my name space where I was planning to show different ways of calculating ESI, but it's still a work in progress... Temperature is currently estimated for most planets, but the estimate might be refined with new measurements. Now with the new ability to detect molecules around a planet, we can start to estimate the atmospheric composition, and that will be a good factor to include in the calculation of a better ESI. I have a spreadsheet where I included 2 different ways of calculating ESI, and the ranking of the planets changes a little bit between the 2, but they are mostly in the same ball park. Another factor to consider is the distance of a planet from earth. The closer the planet, and the more likely we might consider sending some type of mission to it. So by combining ESI with proximity, you get some kind of attractiveness index. Dhrm77 (talk) 20:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

LTT 1445 Ad
This planet is missing. It is a potentially habitable planet located just 22.4 light-years away. See LTT 1445#LTT 1445 Ad for more information InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 17:17, 23 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Regarding my comment about PHL below, this planet isn't in their list either, but that's because it's not in their source database (the NASA Exoplanet Archive). I would guess that's because the Exoplanet Archive considers it to require further confirmation. The list does include an unconfirmed planet candidate though (L 98-59 f), and some planets that have been challenged. SevenSpheres (talk) 18:45, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Inclusion of Tau Ceti e and f
Tau Ceti e and f sit within or within a few percent of the habitable zone under optimistic scenarios and meet the requirements in terms of approximate mass. It is my view that they should be included. If they are not included, then I think the list definition should be made clearer as to what 'in the habitable zone' means.

Best wishes, ~ El D. (talk to me) 18:06, 30 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The list (which needs to be updated) is mainly based on the PHL list, which uses the Kopparapu et al. 2013 habitable zone model, as do most modern sources. PHL doesn't list Tau Ceti e & f because the data it uses puts them outside the habitable zone by this definition; in Figure 2 planet f can be seen just beyond the outer edge of the habitable zone. However, the list does currently include a few planets described as potentially habitable by other sources, such as Gliese 625 b which is much too hot to be in the habitable zone by the Kopparapu definition - so if these are kept Tau Ceti e & f could be added as well, I guess. SevenSpheres (talk) 18:38, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

TOI-715 b
Please add this planet to the list. It is a super-Earth orbiting within the conservative habitable zone of its star. Currently, there are draft articles about this planet and its host star still under construction. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 12:57, 9 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Yep, that one should be added. You can do it! SevenSpheres (talk) 17:37, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I added it to the list. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 20:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Should Venus be in the list?
Venus has been added and removed at least twice. Everybody knows that Venus isn't basically considered habitable. However, there are some good reasons to include it as a reference. Consider Teq, for instance: By comparing Venus's value to Earth's value, one might think that Venus is cooler than Earth. We all know that's the other way around. So including Venus in the list shows that there are a wide range of parameters that might make a planet "potentially" habitable, or not. So having Venus in the list might be useful to a reader. Dhrm77 (talk) 21:06, 19 June 2024 (UTC)


 * If Venus is removed, most other entries should be removed as they are hardly habitable as well (especially ones like Proxima Centauri b and Kepler-22 b). Ignoring Venus’ upper atmosphere, it could be considered habitable the same way the others are. Mars is also potentially habitable using that method of mass and Teq.  SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   17:53, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Don't see anything useful by including Venus in the list. It contradicts the name of the article, List of potentially habitable exoplanets. Venus is not habitable, adding it to the list without any explanation reduces the reliability of Wikipedia. 21 Andromedae (talk) 11:53, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Removing Venus would allow almost all planets on the list as they most likely aren't habitable either. There should be at least some consistency.  SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   14:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Besides the name, we know too little about exoplanets, so we say that they are potentially habitable, not knowing for sure. Venus and Mars, we have loads of extra information, so we know that they are 100% not habitable, not without terraforming, even if there is some good statistic about them. Cambalachero (talk) 15:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Of course they are not habitable but it should be shown that using the same method of Teq and mass that they are also technically potentially habitable. If we do have to remove Venus, we should also remove Proxima Centauri b as it has been demonstrated that it can only retain an atmosphere for ~108 years according to this paper.  SpaceImplorer ExplorerImplorer   19:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)