Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

TOI-1080 b: A Temperate, Rocky Planet Orbiting A Quiet M4V Host

By Keith Cowing
Status Report
astro-ph.EP
March 4, 2026
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TOI-1080 b: A Temperate, Rocky Planet Orbiting A Quiet M4V Host
Normalized TESS light curve. The 45 967 individual photometric points are shown in grey. The purple line shows the 30 minute binned flux. The transits of TOI-1080 b are marked by the pink triangles. — astro-ph.EP

We present the detection and validation of a small, temperate transiting exoplanet orbiting TOI-1080 every 3.9652482+0.0000014−0.0000015 days. The host is a quiet M4V star at 25.6 pc.

The planet signal was first detected by TESS and validated using TESS and ground-based observations. By fitting the available light curves, the planet radius is measured to be 1.200+- 0.058 Rearth and its equilibrium temperature of 368+12−10 K.

With NIRPS radial velocities, we are able to place a 3-sigma upper limit on the mass of TOI-1080 b of 10.7 Mearth. Our injection-recovery tests enable us to discard additional transiting planets in the TOI-1080 system with radii down to 0.9 Rearth and periods between 0.5 and 7.7 days, and planets with radii larger than 1.4 Rearth for periods up to 19 days. We demonstrate that it is highly amenable to characterisation of its mass and putative atmosphere.

In particular, we find that TOI-1080 b is an exceptional target for the ongoing JWST+HST Rocky Worlds DDT programme, having a priority score that is higher than four out of nine targets currently being investigated by the programme. TOI-1080 b can be added to the sample of nearby benchmark planets accessible for detailed study with JWST.

Y. Gómez Maqueo Chew, G. Dransfield, K. Barkaoui, C. Cadieux, E. Ducrot, B. V. Rackham, M. Timmermans, A. J. Burgasser, A. Segura, K. G. Stassun, C. Ziegler, A. Soubkiou, J. M. Almenara, B.O. Demory, M. Gillon, J. M. Jenkins, E. Jofré, A. Khandelwal, S. Páez, R. Petrucci, L. Parc, M. Pichardo Marcano, I. Plauchu-Frayn, U. Schroffenegger, R. Schwarz, T.G. Tan, A. H. M. J. Triaud, Z. Benkhaldoun, X. Bonfils, F. Bouchy, K. A. Collins, F. Davoudi, R. Doyon, M. Gachaoui, M. J. Hooton, E. Jehin, F. J. Pozuelos, M. G. Scott, S. Yalçınkaya, F. Zong Lang, S. Zúñiga-Fernández, J. R. De Medeiros, J. I. González-Hernández, N. C. Santos

Comments: Joint first authorship between Y. Gómez Maqueo Chew and G. Dransfield, as these two authors contributed equally to this work. 15 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.00385 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2603.00385v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.00385
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Submission history
From: Yilen Gómez Maqueo Chew
[v1] Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:10:58 UTC (2,783 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.00385
Astrobiology,

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻