Limits of the New Habitable Zone

Post date: Mar 18, 2013 4:44:15 AM

Here are some limits of the new habitable zone (HZ) for main sequence stars (Table 1) from Kopparapu et al. (2013) for six parameters: distance from star (Table 2), stellar flux (Table 3), equilibrium temperature (Table 4), period (Table 5), transit probability (Table 6), and maximum transit duration (Table 7). The 'conservative habitable zone' is delimited by the 'moist greenhouse' and the 'maximum greenhouse' limits. The 'optimistic habitable zone' by the 'recent Venus' and 'early Mars' limits. All calculated values include minor updates to the HZ definition from the original paper (Kopparapu, personal communication).

Table 1. Stellar properties of representative main-sequence stars. An Earth-size planet transiting around these F-, G-, K-, or M-stars should have a full transit depth of 43, 83, 119, and 939 ppm, respectively.

note: SU = solar units, stellar data from exoplanets.org

Table 2. Distance limits (AU) for the Habitable Zone of main-sequence stars.

Table 3. Stellar flux limits (Solar Units) for the Habitable Zone of main-sequence stars.

Table 4. Expected equilibrium temperatures (K) for a planet within the Habitable Zone limits of main-sequence stars (assuming a 0.3 bond albedo).

Table 5. Expected periods (days) for a planet within the Habitable Zone limits of main-sequence stars.

Table 6. Expected transit probabilities (%) for a planet within the Habitable Zone limits of main-sequence stars.

Table 7. Expected maximum transit durations (hours) for an Earth-size planet within the Habitable Zone limits of main-sequence stars.