The Impact of Stellar Distances on Habitable Zone Planets

Abstract

Among the most highly valued of exoplanetary discoveries are those of terrestrial planets found to reside within the Habitable Zone (HZ) of the host star. In particular, those HZ planets with relatively bright host stars will serve as priority targets for characterization observations, such as those involving mass determinations, transmission spectroscopy, and direct imaging. The properties of the star are greatly affected by the distance measurement to the star, and subsequent changes to the luminosity result in revisions to the extent of the HZ and the properties of the planet. This is particularly relevant in the realm of Gaia which has released updated stellar parallaxes for the known exoplanet host stars. Here we provide a generalized formulation of the effect of distance on planetary system properties, including the HZ. We apply this methodology to three known systems and show that the recent Gaia Data Release 2 distances have a modest effect for TRAPPIST-1 but a relatively severe effect for Kepler-186 and LHS 1140.

7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJL

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Cited by in corpus (25)

• A second terrestrial planet orbiting the nearby M dwarf LHS 1140
• A review of possible planetary atmospheres in the TRAPPIST-1 system
• Hubble WFC3 Spectroscopy of the Habitable-zone Super-Earth LHS 1140 b
• Interior characterization in multiplanetary systems: TRAPPIST-1
• Dim Prospects for Transmission Spectra of Ocean Earths Around M Stars
• WALLABY Pilot Survey: Public release of HI data for almost 600 galaxies from phase 1 of ASKAP pilot observations
• Distinguishing between wet and dry atmospheres of TRAPPIST-1 e and f
• The First Habitable Zone Earth-Sized Planet From TESS II: $Spitzer$ Confirms TOI-700 d
• Eccentricity Driven Climate Effects in the Kepler-1649 System
• Albedos, Equilibrium Temperatures, and Surface Temperatures of Habitable Planets
• Revised Exoplanet Radii and Habitability Using Gaia Data Release 2
• Tidal Dissipation in Dual-Body, Highly Eccentric, and Non-synchronously Rotating Systems: Applications to Pluto-Charon and the Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e
• Dynamical Packing in the Habitable Zone: The Case of Beta CVn
• Asteroseismology of the Multiplanet System K2-93
• GCM Constraints on the Detectability of the CO${}_2$-CH${}_4$ Biosignature Pair on TRAPPIST-1e with JWST
• The Sparse Atmospheric MOdel Sampling Analysis (SAMOSA) intercomparison: Motivations and protocol version 1.0. A CUISINES model intercomparison project
• The high-energy radiation environment of the habitable-zone super-Earth LHS 1140b
• Orbital Dynamics and the Evolution of Planetary Habitability in the AU Mic System
• K2-HERMES II. Planet-candidate properties from K2 Campaigns 1-13
• Phase Modeling of the TRAPPIST-1 Planetary Atmospheres
• The white-light superflares from cool stars in GWAC triggers
• Constraining the Radio Emission of TRAPPIST-1
• Variability of Known Exoplanet Host Stars Observed by TESS
• A reanalysis of the LHS 1140 b atmosphere observed with the Hubble Space Telescope
• Potential Habitability as a Stellar Property: Effects of Model Uncertainties and Measurement Precision