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Project Progress

The past year brought us, finally, a confirmed transiting small-size planet in the classical Habitable Zone of a Sun-like star – Kepler-22b of 2.4 Earth radius. Kaltenegger and Sasselov contributed the analysis of this planet in terms of its habitability characteristics and location within the habitable zone to the discovery paper by the Kepler team. With new Kepler discoveries of even smaller planets in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars they have continued to work with the Kepler team in characterizing them. In addition the team continued to improve its modeling of the atmospheres of such habitable exoplanets, both in terms of cloud formation and spectral signatures (involving students A. Zsom and S. Rugheimer), and in understanding novel geochemical cycles on water-dominated Super-Earths (involving student A. Levi).