Habitable-zone Planet Finder Archives

GJ 3378b orbits a small cool red dwarf -- Grok via Astrobiology.com

Nearby “Super Earth” May Be A Better Candidate For Life Than Previously Thought

by Keith CowingJuly 4, 2026July 4, 2026

[UT Austin] Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers have taken a closer look at a nearby exoplanet and discovered it may be more Earth-like than previously thought. The […]

View from the surface of the habitable-zone super-Earth exoplanet GJ 3378b. The planet has a minimum mass just over twice that of Earth and orbits its star at a distance that causes it to receive almost the same amount of starlight as Earth does. The planet joins a growing population of potential hosts for life in the nearby universe. -- Grok via Astrobiology.com

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

A New Earth-like Exoplanet Discovered

by Keith CowingJuly 1, 2026July 3, 2026

[UC Irvine] A team led by astronomers at the University of California, Irvine reports the discovery of a new Earth-like exoplanet orbiting a star about 25 light-years from our solar […]

Color-magnitude diagram for nearby stars (within 100 pc) showing the local main sequence in MG vs BP − RP. The background density map is constructed from the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2021). The three analyzed binary star targets, LSPM J0515+5911, NLTT 45468, and NLTT 43564, are plotted as red markers and they include light from the unresolved companion as seen by Gaia. The blue line indicates the observational transition to fully convective M dwarfs and the orange curve shows the empirical main-sequence points from Jao et al. (2023). -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Stellar And Orbital Characterization Of Three Low Mass M Dwarf Binary Stars With Dynamical Spectroscopy From The Habitable Zone Planet Finder

by Keith CowingJanuary 29, 2026January 29, 2026

Contrast curves and reconstructed images from the NESSI speckle imager for a: LSPM 0515+5911, b: NLTT 45468, and c: NLTT 43564. Neither LSPM 0515+5911 nor NLTT 43564 show companions within […]

The size of GJ 251 and the orbits of GJ 251 b and c. Stellar size and orbital distances are to scale. In light green we show the optimistic HZ, and in dark green the conservative HZ (Kopparapu et al. 2013, 2014). GJ 251 c orbits directly in a regime where liquid water might be able to exist on its surface. -- astro-ph.EP

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Discovery Of A Nearby Habitable Zone Super-Earth Candidate Amenable To Direct Imaging

by Keith CowingOctober 28, 2025October 29, 2025

We present the discovery of GJ 251 c, a candidate super-Earth orbiting in the Habitable Zone (HZ) of its M dwarf host star.

Best fit results from a joint transit and RV fit using a quasi-periodic GP model to account for the excess RV scatter in the RVs. a) Top: NEID (yellow) and HPF (green) RVs as a function of time. The best-fit Keplerian model is shown in red (appears as a solid band due to the short period orbit). The median of the GP component is shown in blue. The joint best-fit model is shown in grey. Bottom: Residuals from the best fit model. b) Top: Phase-folded RVs on the period of TOI-2431 b. Best fit Keplerian model after subtracting the GP model is shown in red. Bottom: RV residuals as a function of phase. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Status Report

An Earth-Sized Planet In A 5.4h Orbit Around A Nearby K Dwarf

by Keith CowingJuly 14, 2025July 14, 2025

We present the discovery and confirmation of the ultra-short period (USP) planet TOI-2431 b orbiting a nearby (d∼36 pc) late K star (Teff = 4109±28K) using observations from the Transiting […]

High contrast imaging data for all targets. In each panel, we show the achieved 5σ contrast limit as a function of angular separation from the host star for each high contrast data set. We also plot 1.4′′ × 1.4′′ postage stamps of the reconstructed z ′ -band NESSI images (right-hand inset in each panel) for all targets and the AO images (left-hand insets) for TOI-5414, TOI-5616, and TOI-5634A and TOI-6034. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Searching For GEMS: Characterizing Six Giant Planets Around Cool Dwarfs

by Keith CowingAugust 29, 2024August 28, 2024

Transiting giant exoplanets around M-dwarf stars (GEMS) are rare, owing to the low-mass host stars. However, the all-sky coverage of TESS has enabled the detection of an increasingly large number […]