FYI

phl.upr.edu/projects/habcat

The Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems (HabCat) contains a selection of 17,129 candidate host stars for potential habitable exoplanets for complex life. It was created from a database of 118,218 stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue by combining the information on stellar distances, variability, multiplicity, kinematics and spectral classification (Table 1). The catalog was created on 2003 by scientists Jill Tarter and Margaret Turnbull under the auspices of Project Phoenix (1998-2004) as part of SETI.

This page is hosting HabCat together with some more recent analysis and visualizations. HabCat original publication listed 55 stars with planets on 2003. We also update this lists as part of our Habitable Exoplanets Catalog (HEC). There are now 165 stars with planets in the HabCat list. Note that this list is based on more recent stellar data and does not necessarily matches the original HabCat criteria. The list of all these stars with planets is listed here.

Original Criteria for HabCat Candidates
Stars must be at least 3 Gyr old.
Stars must be non-variable.
Stars must be capable of harboring terrestrial planets (measured by [Fe/H]).
support a dynamically stable habitable zone.

Legend of Data Columns
HIP — Hipparcos catalog number
RA — Right Ascension
DEC — Declination
V — Johnson V-band magnitude
PARX — Parallax
SIGPX — Parallax standard error
B-V — B-V color index
SIGBV — B-V color index standard error
CCDM — Components of Double and Multiple Stars catalog number
HD — Henry Draper catalog number
BD — Bonner Durchmusterung catalog name

References
Turnbull, M. C. and Tarter, J. C. (2003) Target Selection for SETI: 1. A Catalog of Nearby Habitable Stellar Systems. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 145, 181. PDF ArXiv:astro-ph/0210675v1.

Turnbull, M. C. and Tarter, J. C. (2003). Target selection for SETI. II. Tycho-2 dwarfs, old open clusters, and the nearest 100 stars. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 149, 423. PDF

Click on the link labeled “Original published fixed length text format.” about half-way down the page to download the file.

The distance to the star in parsecs is the reciprocal of the parallax in seconds of arc. So a parallax of 18.8 milliarcseconds implies a distance of about 53 parsecs, or approx 173 light-years.

B-V colour index, the difference between Apparent Blue and Visual magnitudes on calibrated photographic emulsions with standard filters, is a measure of the star’s colour, and hence its surface temperature and spectral class. This technique is employed because it is independent of the distance of the object and the optical system which exposed the plate.

Today, although photometric measurements are usually made with CCD devices, modern results are usually converted to this format so that may be more easily compared with archival data.

Spectral class, (Surface Temp in deg K), B-V

O5 38000 -0.32
B0 30000 -0.30
A0 10800 0.0
F0 7240 0.33
G0 5920 0.60
K0 5240 0.81
M0 3920 1.41