New Cornell research – co-authored by an undergraduate and two recent alumni – will help exoplanet scientists pinpoint the most likely places to look for life in the universe out of more than 6,000 exoplanets.

The paper, “ Probing the Limits of Habitability: a Catalogue of Rocky Exoplanets in the Habitable Zone,” published March 19 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Authors are Abigail Bohl ’26, Lucas Lawrence ’23, Gillis Lowry ’25 and Lisa Kaltenegger, professor of astronomy and director of the Carl Sagan Institute in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The project utilizes new data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission and the NASA Exoplanet Archive to identify planets in the habitable zone.