Habitability consequences of the dynamically warm Earth‑proxy subpopulation

Determine the habitability consequences for the hypothesized dynamically warm subpopulation of exoplanets with Earth-like radii and instellation orbiting late-type (M/K) stars, a group suggested by the single outlier Kepler-440 b (KOI-4087.01) with orbital eccentricity around 0.4; perform this assessment using a more representative sample to enable quantitative conclusions about this subpopulation’s habitability.

Background

The paper infers that most Earth-proxy planets around late-type stars have near-circular orbits, but identifies one confirmed planet, Kepler-440 b (KOI-4087.01), with moderate eccentricity (~0.4), suggesting a minority population of dynamically warmer Earth proxies.

While the authors estimate small shifts to habitable zone boundaries for the dominant dynamically cool population, they explicitly note that the dynamically warm group is represented by only a single instance, preventing them from estimating its habitability implications without additional examples.