AUSTIN, Texas — A team of astronomers has put together an online catalog of alien planets to help researchers and the public keep up with the intensifying flurry of exoplanet discoveries.
The so-called Habitable Zone Gallery also allows scientists to extract data on the habitability of exoplanets and the possible existence of alien moons, also known as exomoons.
"The characterization of exoplanets and their moons is becoming increasingly important," said Dawn Gelino, an astronomer at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "We wanted an interactive table where you can sort on various parameters, which might be good for target selection for other projects."
Gelino presented the catalog Wednesday (Jan. 11) here at the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
The website lists details of the alien worlds, including their masses, radii, orbits, luminosities and the boundaries for their host stars' habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, to exist.
"If the system is a multi-planet system, we plot all these together in relation to star's habitable zone," Gelino said.
The Habitable Zone Gallery can be viewed at the following website: http://www.hzgallery.org/
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