Stellar Cartography Archives

Plotted here are the Kepler confirmed planets/candidates with Gaia DR2 radius improvements. Selection criteria are main-sequence host-star with temperature 5000-6500 K and planet radius errors less than ±10%. Data source: exoplanet archive (Akeson et al. 2013) (Christiansen et al. 2025) (Thompson et al. 2017) and Gaia DR2 Berger et al. (2020, 2018); Brown et al. (2018); Lindegren et al. (2018). Sub-Panels: (1): 1100+ planets fulfilling the criteria, with gray ellipse showing the typical errors in planet radius and temperature. (2) and (3): Smooth Kernel fit to data. (4): All known transiting Hot Jupiters (Rp > 8 R⊕) which have masses measured from RV surveys (e.g. WASP, HAT, HAT-P, etc.), colored by metallicity ([Fe/H]). also c.f. (Castro-González et al. 2024). -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Exoplanet Orbital Distribution Around FGK Sun-like Host Stars I: Planet Occurrence Rate Derived From The Kepler Mission And Theoretical Interpretations From Planet Formation

by Keith CowingApril 11, 2026April 11, 2026

Recent astronomical observations, in particular from the Kepler and TESS missions and their related follow-ups, have revealed an abundance of exoplanets in the size range between Neptune (4 Earth radii) […]

Main plot: mass-radius plot of well-studied exoplanets from TepCat in between 1-20 Earth masses and 1-4 Earth radii. Some theoretical mass-radius curves are shown for comparison. Although a subset of planets is below the silicate (i.e. pure rock) curve and can be identified as rocky planets, a larger proportion of the planets is above this curve. In particular, they exhibit a clustering in the range of 6-10 Earth masses as shown by the background with 2D probability density contours and shading. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Exoplanet Orbital Distribution Around FGK Sun-like Host Stars II: A Valley In The Orbital Semi-major Axis Distribution Of Sub-Neptunes

by Keith CowingApril 10, 2026April 10, 2026

More than one hundred years ago, physics has been revolutionized when people realized that electronic orbitals, or electromagnetic interactions in general, are quantized. Now, in this study, we are presenting […]

The transit fitting results for KOI-1300.01. The upper right panel shows the phase-folded and contamination-corrected transit lightcurve for the planet’s circumprimary case. The gray circles are the normalized and contamination corrected flux values. The blue squares are the normalized flux values obtained from binning 800 data points at a time. The red line is the model fit to the data. The lower right panel shows the same information for the circumsecondary case. The upper left panels shows the corner plots from the MCMC sampling in the circumprimary case. The lower left shows the corner plots for the circumsecondary case. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Determining the Host Stars of Planets in Binary Star Systems with Asterodensity Profiling: Investigating the Canonical Radius Gap

by Keith CowingApril 9, 2026April 9, 2026

Over the past 30 years, thousands of exoplanets have been discovered, revealing detailed demographics of planets outside the Solar System.

The left plots show the results of our injection and recovery test into our JWST observation of TOI 700 d, and the right for e.

Analog Studies, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

The JWST Search For Earth-Luna Analogs: Upper Limits On Exomoons And Refined Ephemerides For TOI 700 d And e

by Keith CowingApril 8, 2026April 8, 2026

While no conclusive detections of exomoons have been reported to date, planet formation theories predict that satellites should be a common outcome of the collisional dynamics in early extrasolar systems.

Period-radius plot for planets in single-star (gray points) and binary-star (colored points) systems considered in this work. Colors correspond to log10(ρ), i.e. the projected physical binary separation in au. We restricted the sample to planets with 1 < P < 100 d and 0.5 < Rp < 4R⊕. The planets in binary-star systems have a similar distribution in period-radius space as the planets in single-star systems, although the relative occurrence rate of sub-Neptunes (2 < Rp < 4R⊕) is suppressed in small-separation binary-star systems (K. Sullivan et al. 2024). -- astro-ph.EP

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Planetary Architectures of Kepler Compact Multis with Binary Star Companions

by Keith CowingApril 6, 2026April 6, 2026

Planets in binary-star systems exhibit demographic differences compared to planets in single-star systems.

Dynamical evolution of planetary embryos in a representative simulation of Scenario FIX. Each line corresponds to one embryo: gray lines show all embryos, while colored lines highlight those that survive until the end of the integration at ∼ 50 Myr. Panels display the semi-major axis (top left), eccentricity (top right), inclination (bottom left), and planetary mass (bottom right). The horizontal dashed blue line in the semi-major-axis panel marks the fixed inner disk edge at 0.01 au, which is applied only during the gas-disk phase (up to 10 Myr). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

The Role Of Inner Disk Edges In Shaping Ultra-short-period Planet Systems Around Late M Dwarfs

by Keith CowingApril 5, 2026April 5, 2026

Close-in rocky planets are the most common type of exoplanets around late M dwarfs, ranging from more temperate worlds to highly irradiated lava planets with molten surfaces, and many theoretical […]

WISE, near-infrared, and optical images of all ultracool wide binary candidates. Optical images either come from Pan-STARRS (PS1; Chambers et al. 2016) or DECam images obtained through the Astro Data Lab image cutout service (Fitzpatrick et al. 2014; Nikutta et al. 2020). -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Citizen Science / Open Science, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Three Thousand Motion-Confirmed L and T Dwarf Candidates From The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Citizen Science Project

by Keith CowingApril 3, 2026April 3, 2026

The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project uses data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer to detect infrared objects with significant motion.

Fitting of exoplanets. (a) The target star is HD 88230, with a hypothetical Earth-like planet placed at a distance of 1 AU from the star. (b) The target star is again HD 88230, with a hypothetical warm Jupiter placed at a distance of 0.1 AU. (c) The target star is HD 147513, which is known to host the detected Jovian planet HD 147513 b. The angular distance measurement accuracy is 1 µas. The black points represent the simulated planetary parameters, while the red points show the residuals after removing proper motion and parallax through fitting. The blue points depict the stellar motion orbit induced by planetary perturbations, derived from a Keplerian fit to the residuals. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES). V. Planetary Parameters Derived from Angular Separation Variations

by Keith CowingApril 1, 2026April 1, 2026

The Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES) aims to achieve microarcsecond-level astrometry of about one hundred nearby FGK-type stars within 10 parsecs to detect Earth-like planets.

TRES RV observations of HD 12800. We mark the dates of announcement (2022-06-13) and official retraction (2024-05-27) for the Gaia DR3 planet candidate. Our observations would have easily detected the RV signal expected from the Gaia DR3 orbital solution, and independently verify that the companion does not exist. While in this case the ultimate result is a non-detection, this nonetheless serves to demonstrate the value of intermediate-precision (≈10 m s−1 ) RV observations for the follow-up of Gaia astrometric exoplanet candidates. -- astro-ph.EP)

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

A Planetary Illusion’s Funeral: Non-detection of a Gaia DR3 Exoplanet Candidate, and the Role of Intermediate-precision Radial Velocities in Gaia Exoplanet Follow-up

by Keith CowingMarch 28, 2026March 28, 2026

The detection of exoplanets using astrometry has long been an area of interest, but is fraught with challenges. The Gaia mission is fundamentally reshaping this field thanks to its unprecedentedly […]

Overview of the 3 m Lazuli Space Observatory and its three instruments, the Widefield Context Camera (WCC), the Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS), and the ExtraSolar Coronagraph (ESC). Main properties and characteristics of the telescope and the instruments are highlighted. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Citizen Science / Open Science, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

The Lazuli Space Observatory: Architecture & Capabilities

by Keith CowingMarch 26, 2026March 26, 2026

Editor’s note: The Lazuli Space Observatory is part of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatory System, the proposed Lazuli Space Observatory is a 3-meter telescope designed to capture fast-changing cosmic […]

Stellar Cartography

Exoplanet Orbital Distribution Around FGK Sun-like Host Stars I: Planet Occurrence Rate Derived From The Kepler Mission And Theoretical Interpretations From Planet Formation

Exoplanet Orbital Distribution Around FGK Sun-like Host Stars II: A Valley In The Orbital Semi-major Axis Distribution Of Sub-Neptunes

Determining the Host Stars of Planets in Binary Star Systems with Asterodensity Profiling: Investigating the Canonical Radius Gap

The JWST Search For Earth-Luna Analogs: Upper Limits On Exomoons And Refined Ephemerides For TOI 700 d And e

Planetary Architectures of Kepler Compact Multis with Binary Star Companions

The Role Of Inner Disk Edges In Shaping Ultra-short-period Planet Systems Around Late M Dwarfs

Three Thousand Motion-Confirmed L and T Dwarf Candidates From The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Citizen Science Project

Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES). V. Planetary Parameters Derived from Angular Separation Variations

A Planetary Illusion’s Funeral: Non-detection of a Gaia DR3 Exoplanet Candidate, and the Role of Intermediate-precision Radial Velocities in Gaia Exoplanet Follow-up

The Lazuli Space Observatory: Architecture & Capabilities

Giving NASA’s SciX A Quick Astrobiology Roadtest

An Ultraviolet Instrument On The Habitable Worlds Observatory: Considerations and Capability Trades On The Multi-Object, Integral-field, and High-resolution Modes Of A Potential UVI

The Hydrological Cycle and Circulation of Tidally-Locked Planets with A Finite Moisture Inventory

Fermentation Heterotrophy Can Reproduce Enceladus’s H2 And CH4 Under Limited Serpentinization

Perseverance Mars Rover Sets Off-World Record for Total Distance Driven