Revised Exoplanet Radii and Habitability Using Gaia Data Release 2

Abstract Accurate stellar properties are crucial for determining exoplanet characteristics. Gaia DR2 presents revised distances, luminosities, and radii for 1.6 billion stars. Here, we report the calculation of revised radii and densities for 320 non-Kepler exoplanets using this data and present updated calculations of the incident flux received by 690 known exoplanets. This allows us to reassess the likelihood that those planets orbit in the habitable zone of their host stars. As a result of this analysis, three planets can be added to the catalog of potentially habitable worlds: HIP 67537 b, HD 148156 b, and HD 106720 b. In addition, the changed parameterization of BD +49 898 means that its planet, BD +49 898 b, now receives an incident flux that places it outside the optimistic habitable zone region, as defined by Kopparapu et al. We find that use of the new Gaia data results in a mean increase in the calculated exoplanet radius of 3.76%. Previously, CoRoT-3 b had been reported as having the highest density of all known exoplanets. Here, we use updated information to revise the calculated density of CoRoT-3 b from 26.4 to 16.1 ± 3.98 g cm−3. We also report the densest exoplanet in our data set, KELT-1 b, with a density of . Overall, our results highlight the importance of ensuring the parameterizations of known exoplanets are revisited whenever significant improvements are made to the precision of the stellar parameters upon which they are based.