- Which stars in the sun’s neighborhood are the most likely to have habitable planets? A new survey of nearby stars is helping to find the answer.
- The survey covered more than 2,000 stars within 130 light-years of Earth. The stars are K-type, smaller and dimmer than the sun but larger than red dwarfs.
- These stars have much longer lives than our sun, allowing habitable planets more time to develop life.
EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar is available now. Get yours today! Makes a great gift.
A new survey of nearest stars
Astronomers have discovered more than 6,000 exoplanets – planets orbiting other stars – so far. But which stars are the most likely to have planets that could support life? In a new study led by Georgia State University and the RECONS Institute, researchers said on January 6, 2026, that they conducted a survey of more than 2,000 stars within 130 light-years of Earth. The survey focused on lower-mass K-type stars and provided precise measurements of their spectra.
K-type stars are the second most common type of star in our galaxy. (M-type stars – or red dwarfs – are the most common stars in the Milky Way.) Overall, K-type stars comprise about 11% of the stars in the sun’s neighborhood.
Astronomy PhD student Sebastián Carrazco-Gaxiola at Georgia State University and the RECONS Institute presented the results of the survey at the 247th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS 247) in Phoenix, Arizona, on January 5, 2026.
A comprehensive survey of over 2,000 nearby K dwarf stars provides new insights into stellar environments that may support Earth-like planets and long-term habitability.
— Science X / Phys.org (@sciencex.bsky.social) 2026-01-06T15:27:15-05:00
Observing more than 2,000 K-type stars
For the survey, the researchers used state-of-the-art spectrographs on the SMARTS 60-inch mirror telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile and on the 60-inch Tillinghast Telescope at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in southern Arizona. The survey focused on more than 2,000 K-type stars within 130 light-years. Carrazco-Gaxiola said:
This survey marks the first comprehensive look at thousands of the sun’s lower-mass cousins. These stars, known as ‘K dwarfs,’ are commonly found throughout space, and they provide a long-term, stable environment for their planetary companions.
K-type stars are abundant in our Milky Way galaxy. They are lower in mass and cooler than our G-type sun and are intermediate in size between red dwarfs and yellow dwarfs. But they also have their own habitable zones, where temperatures on a rocky planet could allow liquid water to exist.
Allyson Bieryla, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian added:
The CHIRON spectrograph on the SMARTS telescope in Chile and the TRES spectrograph on the Tillinghast Telescope in Arizona are such complementary instruments. The power of having these two telescopes in opposite hemispheres is that it gives us access to all the K-dwarfs across the entire sky.
The survey provided detailed estimates of the temperature, age, spin rate and motion of the stars.
Habitable planets?
Similar to red dwarfs, these stars have very long lifespans. In fact, they are in the main sequence of their lives for 17 to 70 billion years, compared to about 10 billion for our sun. That means that any habitable planets would have plenty of time to develop life, if conditions were suitable.
Also, K-type stars are about three to four times as abundant as sunlike stars. Plus, they emit less ultraviolet and ionizing radiation, so are less active in terms of deadly solar flares.
However, as with red dwarfs, the habitable zones are closer to the stars, because the stars themselves are smaller and cooler. So a planet must orbit fairly close to the star to be in the habitable zone. And that could still make the planet prone to X-rays and far-ultraviolet radiation for longer than planets around sunlike stars. Consequently, this could possibly hinder or delay the emergence of life.
But overall, rocky planets around K-type stars are considered to be good targets in the search for extraterrestrial life.
Foundation for future studies
The researchers said this survey will serve as a foundation for future studies of nearby stars. As senior co-author Todd Henry at Georgia State University noted:
This survey will be the foundation for studies of nearby stars for decades to come. These stars and their planets will be the destinations for spacecraft exploration in the far future of space travel.
Bottom line: A new survey of nearest stars to the sun – more than 2,000 of them – is helping astronomers determine which ones are the most likely to have habitable planets.
Source: A Volume-Complete All-Sky Spectroscopic Census of more than 2100 Nearby K dwarfs: Insights from the RKSTAR Project
Via Georgia State University
Read more: Habitable exoplanets could exist around nearby stars
Read more: Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e: New hints of a habitable world?