If you were given a spacecraft that could travel at light speed and get you to any other planet, where would you go? Well, astronomers picked the best 45 exoplanets out of the 6,000 that we identified. It made me wonder what these planets are like and how you measure what’s a good “fit?”
Let’s take a look and learn more about how you identify a habitable world!
How did we select these 45 Exoplanets?
Lucky for us, we have some great telescopes orbiting Earth. One of them is a European Space Agency (ESA) telescope called Gaia. Data to select these exoplanets came from this telescope, as well as a catalog of all the other previous exoplanets discovered. For this, we use the NASA Exoplanet Archive (NEA).
We have our data sources. Next, what exactly are we looking for?
- Exoplanets that orbit in the habitable zone (HZ)
- Exoplanets that have similar radiation levels to Earth
- Exoplanets that have large eccentricities or orbits similar to Earth (i.e., oval)
Astronomers then narrowed it down further and prioritized the following:
- Exoplanets were detected using 3 finding methods (light-curve, transmission, and direct imaging)
- Oldest HZ rocky planets
- Analyzed the limits of these habitable zones for the exoplanets
Phew! Okay, now we work on this with our team and end up with 45 rocky worlds with the best habitable zones from the entire 6,000 exoplanet data. This will give our future scientists, researchers, and astronomers a hit list when we use telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), and Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE).
In the paper, astronomers summed up what these 45 exoplanets get you:
“We identify the best exoplanets that can test the limits of surface habitability, orbiting close to the theoretical inner and outer limits of the empirical HZ. We also identify exoplanets that can test how eccentricity influences habitability, exoplanets…”
Abigail Bohl, Lucas Lawrence, Gillis Lowry, and Lisa Kalteneggar
Department of Astronomy and Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Cornell University
Carl Sagan Institute
What are some of the top habitable exoplanets like?
Our knowledge of habitable exoplanets is still in its infancy of understanding what it would be like to live on an actual planet. However, in the paper, they give a few categories. Let’s take a look at them.
Here are the Best Rocky Exoplanets
The best rocky habitable zone exoplanets are as follows:
LHS1140b
LHS1140b is a super-Earth exoplanet that orbits an M-type star. Compared to our Sun, the parent star is quite cool and much smaller than ours, only making up 20% the size of the Sun. This exoplanet whips around the star in only 24.7 days! That would make a 30-year-old on Earth 443 years old on LHS1140b! If we were to take a spaceship that could travel at light speed, it would still take us 49 years to get there. This one is quite far, even if we could travel at light speed.
TOI-700 d
This exoplanet is about the same size as Earth. It would take 34.7 days to orbit its parent star. It would take double the amount of time, or 102 years, travelling at the speed of light to arrive at this exoplanet.
K2-3 d
K2-3 d is an exoplanet with a mass of 2.2 Earths. It also has an M-type star and takes 44.6 days to orbit its star. It would take 144 years travelling at the speed of light to reach this one!
TOI-700 e
This exoplanet is slightly smaller than Earth and has a mass of 0.818 Earths. It also orbits the star in a zip at 27.8 days. It has the same M-type star as TOI-700 d and is 102 light-years away from Earth.
TRAPPIST-1 g
TRAPPIST-1 g is a super-Earth with 1.321 Earth masses. This one orbits quite fast with 12.4 days around the star. It has an M-type star that is 90% smaller than our Sun! If we were to take our spacecraft that travels at the speed of light, it would get there in 41 years. It’s not as far as the others but still a considerable amount of time (for humans at least).
What’s Next for Exoplanet Science?
Exoplanet science is evolving, and more exoplanets are being discovered. In fact, as of May 6th, 2026, the NASA Exoplanet archive has 6,278 confirmed exoplanets, TESS has 885 confirmed exoplanets, with a combined total of 7,163 planets! TESS is making waves already with a new technique. Here’s an infographic they created to showcase how they’re finding more exoplanets:
While our friend James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is using spectrograph-specialized instruments to uncover more exoplanets. As a result, it can discover the following:
Who knows when the day will arrive when humans can build a Terrascope or use Earth as a telescope. A fantastic idea that Dr. Kipping discusses in this video. As a result, we would be able to see mountain ranges on exoplanets and explore in detail what has never been imagined before.
Sources:
Abigail Bohl, Lucas Lawrence, Gillis Lowry, Lisa Kaltenegger. Probing the limits of habitability: a catalogue of rocky exoplanets in the habitable zone. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2026; 547 (3) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stag028
Royal Astronomical Society. “Project Hail Mary meets reality: 45 planets could harbor alien life.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 March 2026. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260325005926.htm>.