This is a list of potentially habitable exoplanets and possible exoplanets. The list is based on estimates of habitability by the Habitable Exoplanets Catalog (HEC), and data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The HEC is maintained by the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.
Planet habitability involves orbiting at the right distance from the host star for liquid surface water to be present, various geophysical and geodynamical aspects, radiation type and intensity, and the host star's plasma environment.
In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ or sometimes "ecosphere", "liquid-water belt", "HZ", "life zone" or "Goldilocks zone") is the region around a star where a planet with sufficient atmospheric pressure can maintain liquid water on its surface.
A potentially habitable planet implies a terrestrial planet within the circumstellar habitable zone and with conditions roughly comparable to those of Earth (i.e. an Earth analog) and thus potentially favourable to Earth-like life. However, the question of what makes a planet habitable is much more complex than having a planet located at the right distance from its host star so that water can be liquid on its surface: various geophysical and geodynamical aspects, the radiation, and the host stars plasma environment can influence the evolution of planets and life, if it originated.
In November 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs in the Milky Way, 11 billion of which may be orbiting Sun-like stars.