Habitable Exoplanets

The habitable zone, sometimes called the "Goldilocks zone", is the region around a star where conditions are just right for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface. Too close, and water boils away. Too far, and it freezes solid. Planets within this narrow band are our best candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Not every planet in the habitable zone is necessarily habitable. Factors like atmospheric composition, magnetic field strength, tidal locking, and stellar activity all play critical roles. However, these worlds represent our most promising leads: planets where the fundamental conditions for life as we know it could potentially be met.

Exoplanet Atlas identifies habitable zone candidates using two criteria from NASA's data: an equilibrium temperature between 200 and 320 Kelvin, or an insolation flux between 0.25 and 2.0 times Earth's. Below are all 101 planets that meet these criteria, ordered by temperature.