ABSTRACT

There are over 4000

confirmed planets outside
of our own solar system,
of which about 1600 are
planets similar in
composition to Earth. This
study is directed to find
planetary candidates that
may be habitable for
human or animal life. This
THE POTENTIAL study examines the
connection between
habitable planets and star
type, distance from their
HABITABILITY OF star, habitable zones, and
their similarity to Earth,
concluding that M-Type
stars are some of the best
EXOPLANETS candidates for habitable
life.
 1. Research Question

Since the 1990s, when the first exoplanets were found, we finally realized that we are not unique
among the stars. There are other planets out there, and that is a comforting and terrifying
thought. Ever since I learned of exoplanets beyond our solar system, the first question I thought
of was if we are alone in the universe. Surely if there are other potentially habitable planets, then
there should be other forms of life out in space. This love for space, and the planets, helped
propel me to this subject, as well as the challenging astrophysics associated with such a task.
However, this optimistic view of finding life among the stars changed rather quickly in light of
current climate projections shown recently for the foreseeable future. Finding and learning about
exoplanets is no longer a fun pastime and thought experiment for scientists, rather, it arguably is
preparation for when our world may/will die because of the inability for our race to restrain
ourselves. Therefore, the question I pursue in this investigation is whether there are any
particular planets outside our solar system that may be suitable for human habitation.

My hypothesis is that I will find habitable planets much like our own around G-Type
stars, and larger stars will not harbor many planets.

2. Selection of Candidates

Selection of these stellar candidates was chosen from the NASA Exoplanet archive, with a
couple of restrictions. The first was that humans cannot live on gas giants or Neptune-like
worlds. This accounts for about 65% of all exoplanets, so the list has been narrowed down to
1450 planets, categorized into Super-Earths and Terrestrial planets. However, even this is a
daunting task to catalogue and find certain answers, so, a sample of 41 planets, about 2.8%, was
chosen to reflect the population. Planets were chosen based on certain news relevance, and on
random number generation using a random integer generator on a TI-84 calculator.

3. Formulas Used

The formulas used are used as follows:

 Luminosity: L= kAT4
 Where L is luminosity;

Where k is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (5.670374419 × 10−8 W/m2/K4);

Where A is the area of the star;

Where T is the temperature of the star in Kelvin

 Planet Distance: P2=kd3

where P is the orbital period of the planet in days;

k is the proportionality constant (which consists of GM/4π2, G standing for the

gravitational constant of the star and M being the mass of the star);

D is the distance from the star in astronomical units;

All other calculations were done by calculators found online, plugging in relevant values found
in the data given.

4. Data Collection

Data was collected from two sources. The first was from NASA’s Exoplanet archive in
association with CalTech, and the second was from NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration, found on
NASA’s website.

The layout of the Exoplanet Exploration website. (Managed by the Exoplanet

Exploration Program and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA’s Astrophysics
Division)
The Exoplanet Exploration Program was the first source I went to. It often had the simple
information that I then began to populate a table with in order to find out the Earth Similarity
Index, or how similar the planet is to Earth.

The layout of planet information. (Managed by the Exoplanet Exploration Program and
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA’s Astrophysics Division)

However, some information was still required. For the advanced information, I went to the
Exoplanet archive.

The layout of the Exoplanet Archive. (NASA Exoplanet Archive is operated by the
California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program.)

The typical overview of a star system. (NASA Exoplanet Archive is operated by the
California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program.)
This archive had almost everything the experiment needed to get solid results on whether a
planet was habitable or not, including temperature, orbital axis, star type, etc.

Using this method, I believe that there was enough data to populate and formulate a full dataset
on 41 randomly chosen planets, and enough to draw a solid conclusion.

5. Procedure:

In my experiment, no data can be taken at any practical level, since I do not have access

to the Kepler space telescope. However, I do have access to the entirety of Kepler’s data. Due to

this, my experiment will no consist of an actual practical, however, it will involve quite a bit of

math.

In order to calculate the potential of a habitable planet orbiting a star, multiple factors

must be considered. One of which is the composition of the star, because of potential radiation

concerns. The second of which is the “Goldilocks zone,” or the habitable zone of the star which

is determined by the temperature of planet, that is, if a planet has temperature of 273.15°K to

373.15°K and is roughly 1 AU from the star, it is perfectly earth-like.. This can be calculated via

the mass and radius of the star and what type of star it is. The third is spectroscopy of the planets
themselves, in order to determine the composition of the planet. This data will be a little more

difficult to find because I do not know if that data is currently available to the public.

6. Data:
(Note: "This research has made use of the NASA Exoplanet Archive, which is operated by the
California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program.")

7. Analysis/Conclusion:
These calculations and data, while awe-inspiring, are not without error. For the stars,
each star in mass and radius had some error. The error for these stars, defined in the table, is
defined in solar radii and in solar masses, that is, 432,690 miles and 1.989 × 10^30 kg,
respectively. I used miles for the solar radii calculation because I used another calculator to find
luminosity when luminosity was not defined. This calculator did not have a defined error,
however, they used a simplified calculation of the stellar luminosity calculation, instead of
calculating arbitrary energy, they compare the star to the sun, using the equation (L / L☉ = (R /
R☉)² * (T / T☉)⁴), where L is luminosity of the extra-solar star, R is stellar radius, T is
temperature in Kelvin, L☉ is the luminosity of the sun, R☉ is the radius of the sun, and T☉ is
the temperature of the sun in Kelvins. The type of star has no inherent error from the databases I
used. The temperature of the star has listed uncertainties in Kelvin, however, the ones that are
not listed did not have listed uncertainties. For habitable zones, I used a calculator from the
University of Washington for planets that did not have a habitable zone defined, and as such, the
calculator had a +7%/-10% error calculation of the habitable zone. In addition, the calculator
provided optimistic conditions for the habitable zone, defined as recent Venus (before Venus had
a runaway greenhouse gas effect, which is why it is so hot) or late Mars (when Mars supposedly
had water and a magnetic field). These conditions extend the astronomical units outside
conservative limits, that is, the limits defined if Earth was in the same position around a defined
star and would still be habitable.

Planet mass and radius were almost always listed and did not have any sort of uncertainty
listed. Planet distance from the sun, however, was one of the biggest issues I faced. However, it
was fairly easy to find using Kepler’s Third Law, which is P2=kd3 where P is the orbital period of
the planet in days, k is the proportionality constant (which consists of GM/4π2, G standing for the
gravitational constant of the star and M being the mass of the star), and d is the distance from the
star in astronomical units. Planet temperature was one of this experiment’s biggest problems,
since about half of the planets did not have a temperature value given. In order to compensate, I
had to use yet another calculator. What allows for the temperature of the planet is 4 major
factors: mass and distance from the star, the bond albedo from the planet, and the presence of an
atmosphere. Estimating based on the closeness of most of the planets to their star, a bond albedo
similar to that of Mercury, about 15%, seemed appropriate since the planets seemed to be rocky
and terrestrial like Mercury. Also, there is no evidence that there is an atmosphere around any of
the planets, so a value for greenhouse gases was set to zero. Overall, I believe that there would
be about a 14% uncertainty for bond albedo since Earth has a bond albedo of 29% and an
unknown value for greenhouse gases and atmosphere. I was also unable to find any sort of gas
spectroscopy data from the databases mentioned above. Therefore, the validity of the
temperature calculations (that is, the ones without any sort of uncertainty listed) is very much in
question.

Finally, the last calculation, ESI, or Earth Similarity Index, is defined by the equation:

N being the number of factors affecting the

equation, which was set to 4 to represent temperature, mass, AU, and radius, xi being the average
temperature of Earth (288 K) and xi0 being the average temperature of the planet in question, and
wi being the weight of the planet in Earth masses. This is where the final calculation for
habitability came from, and as such, also suffers from the lack of data given, especially from the
temperature not given by the database.
 Therefore, from the data collected, and the calculations done, I believe there is a solid
connection between habitable planets and M-Type stars. M-type stars, more commonly known as
red dwarfs, according to the data, are more likely to hold habitable planets than other stars
examined in this experiment. This is most likely due to the low luminosity and temperature of
these stars, which affects the habitable zones of these stars. All 6 green-type planets (or planets
defined by the key as being 0.9-1 on the ESI (Earth Similarity Index) scale) are all within M-
Type stars. Most yellow-type planets (or planets defined by the key as being 0.8-0.89 on the ESI
scale) are also located around M-Type planets, with two notable exceptions. One of these is
Kepler 452b, which is located around a G-Type star, a star much like our own, and Kepler 186f,
which is located around a K-Type star, a star in between that of M-Type and G-Type, being
smaller in mass than a G-Type and hotter than an M-Type. Most orange-type planets (or planets
defined by the key as being 0.7-0.79 on the ESI scale) are also mostly located around M-Type
stars, except for Tau Ceti f and Kepler 22b, which are located around G-Type stars. Finally, there
are only two red type planets (or planets defined by the key as being 0.6-0.69 on the ESI scale)
which are both located around M-Type stars as well. All other planets under this is designed as
black-type planets (or planets defined by the key as being under 0.59 on the ESI scale). I
included Earth in the table, to have a baseline, and it is shown as a blue-type planet, as it is the
only known planet to have a perfect ESI (for obvious reasons).

This investigation obviously raises more questions than it answers. One question that will
inevitably come to mind is how we could potentially get to these planets, since if the math holds
true, then we have multiple potential candidates to colonize. Another big question is whether
these planets harbor life, since if it is very similar to Earth, then life could have inevitably
developed. However, the presence of life on these planets, as well as travelling to these planets,
is most likely still relegated to the world of science fiction and therefore is beyond the purview
of this experiment. But, one very big question relating to this experiment is how habitable these
planets truly are. This experiment did not include relevant radioactivity, magnetic field, or
atmospheric calculations. However, astronomers from the Habitable Exoplanets Catalogue,
centered in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, believe that all 6 of the green-type planets defined in my
dataset are known to be habitable, despite the ESI being significantly different in some estimates
(from 0.02 to 0.2). This is due to a different iteration of the ESI equation used, and the available
information of gas spectroscopy. In addition, this experiment did not include the possibility of a
tidally locked planet or exomoons. A tidally locked planet is a planet that does not rotate on its
axis and keeps its same face to its star. One very notable example of this is TRAPPIST-1 system.
All 7 planets are assumed to be tidally locked. However, these planets may still be habitable
around what is known as the terminator zone, or a thin longitudinal line that is stuck in a
permanent sunrise or sunset. The temperature here may be perfect for sustaining life, since it
would be in an ideal temperature for liquid water. I deliberately chose not to include exomoons
since the chance of detecting such moons is very rare indeed and there is no evidence that we
have detected any so far. But, this experiment answers one very crucial question that we have
been pondering since the beginning of time. We may be the only planet that is proven to be
perfect for human habitation, but we now know that out of habitable planets, we know for the
first time that we are not alone out in the cold, dark void of space.

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