A team led by UdeM researchers confirms a fifth potentially habitable planet around L 98-59, a red dwarf 35 light-years away.

Researchers studied the L 98-59 system and confirmed five rocky planets. One is in the habitable zone and may support liquid water.

“Small, rocky planets in the so-called habitable zone – the area around a star where water could exist in liquid form – are potential candidates for habitable worlds,” said Dr. Andreas Quirrenbach, ...

New research shows how tidal heating can affect the habitable zones of these hypothetical planets. Credit: NASA, CSA, ESA, J ... Observations reveal the properties of a nearby cold brown dwarf.

This cloud behavior dramatically expanded the habitable zone of red dwarfs, which are much smaller and fainter than stars like the sun. This illustration shows simulated cloud coverage ...

More information: Austin Ware et al, Continuous Habitable Zone Metric for Prioritizing Habitable Worlds Observatory Targets, arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2505.20558 ...

So the brown dwarf that three decades ago was named Gliese 229B is now recognized as Gliese 229Ba, with a mass 38 times greater than our solar system's largest planet Jupiter, and Gliese 229Bb ...