MARY, Arthur (2025) How the “Habitable Zone” Frames Exoplanet Discovery Papers: A Quantitative Snapshot and an Epistemological Appraisal. [Preprint]

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Abstract

This article investigates the uses of the concept of the habitable zone (HZ) in recent exoplanetary research. A corpus of articles (n=24) published between 2022 and 2024 was constructed, and each text was analyzed with regard to its mobilization of the HZ concept. The results show that the HZ functions in two distinct ways: as a heuristic tool, guiding research by providing operational boundaries for habitability, and as a presumptive device, where its unexamined use tends to impose the idea that planets located outside the HZ are, by default, uninhabitable. These usages demonstrate how the concept not only structures the design of scientific inquiries but also frames the broader imagination of planetary habitability and the search for life.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID MARY, Arthur arth.mary@proton.me 0009-0003-0710-6203
Keywords:	habitability, exoplanet
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Astrophysics General Issues > Models and Idealization General Issues > Rhetoric of Science
Depositing User:	Dr Arthur Mary
Date Deposited:	20 Aug 2025 13:40
Last Modified:	20 Aug 2025 13:40
Item ID:	26280
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Astrophysics General Issues > Models and Idealization General Issues > Rhetoric of Science
Date:	August 2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26280

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