2018/09/11 by Matthew T. Agnew, Matthew T Agnew, Sarah Maddison +2 · 19 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrobiology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Exoplanet #Gas giant #Giant planet #Mining engineering #Physics #Planet #Planetary system #Prospecting #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.EP
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/sty2509
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 481(4), 4680-4697 (Oxford University Press) · 20 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables
arxiv created 2018/09/11 · openalex publication_date 2018/09/12 · arxiv updated 2018/09/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In this work, we hunt for the best places to find exo-Earths in the currently known exoplanet population. While it is still unclear whether Jupiter had a beneficial or detrimental effect on the creation of the right environment for a habitable Earth to develop, we focus on the 51 multiple planet systems that have at least one Jupiter-like planet and aim to identify which would be good candidates to host an exo-Earth. We conduct a series of numerical simulations to identify dynamically stable regions of the habitable zone of the multiple exoplanet systems capable of hosting an Earth-mass planet. We produce a candidate list of 16 systems that could host such a stable exo-Earth in their habitable zone, and for which the induced radial velocity signal of a hypothetical one, two or four Earth-mass planet on the host star would be detectable with the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations spectrograph. We find that whilst the gravitational interactions with the massive planet nearest the habitable zone are critical in determining stability, the secular resonant interactions between multiple planets can also have a dramatic influence on the overall stability of the habitable zone.