The Exoplanet Habitable Zone Candidates and the exoExplorer Planets pages tabulate the exoplanets that are the most promising candidates for life. For each listed candidate, the Exoplanet Habitable Zone Candidates page presents an estimation of the host star's habitable zone migration history and the exoplanet's residency therein.

The exoExplorer Planets page estimates current habitable zone circumstances for all known exoplanets. The upcoming exoExplorer application will draw upon the data in this list for virtual voyages to the exoplanets.

For raw data, these pages use the latest listings from the frequently-updated Exoplanets Encyclopaedia. The data then are crunched here to determine key characteristics for each planet.

What is planetary biology and how does this science fit into the overall thinking about life on worlds – including Earth and others?

Planetary biology is a whole world systems science. That is, the fundamental operational unit is the whole planet. Planetary biology is an integrated science that draws upon several useful sciences. The planetary biology perspective supports our efforts to understand how the activities of life (enterprising objects*) interact with and influence the operations and characteristics of the whole planet. For example, how can the collective activities of enterprising objects influence a planet's atmosphere?

The diagram at left shows the arrangement of various scientific disciplines that are useful in planetary biology. Out of necessity, it uses Earth as the basic organizational template. Given that life on Earth churns the surface, the oceans and the atmosphere in a variety of chemical ways, and produces many interesting chemical results, this diagram prominently includes chemistry-related disciplines. We see on our planet that the chemistry of life (biochemistry) can powerfully exploit the chemistry of the physical planet (geochemistry) to produce remarkable environmental outcomes (biogeochemistry).

Planetary biology incorporates ecological principles along with biogeochemistry in an effort to understand the sensible organizational structure and dynamics of a planet's enterprising occupants. Ultimately, this synthesis provides a useful analytical framework toward understanding the collective, long-term consequences of a world’s global biogeochemical activities.

The continuing discoveries of exoplanets (exoplanet astronomy) provide exciting new platforms upon which to contemplate possibilities for life in the galaxy. The application of the principles of planetary biology onto these new worlds yields the hopeful science of astrobiology – giving wings of substance and reason to our spirited quest to better know our universe and ourselves.