GJ 887 d is a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting the nearby M dwarf gj-887 10.7 light-years from Earth. Confirmed in 2026, GJ 887 d has a minimum mass of ~6 M⊕ and a 51-day orbital period placing it inside the habitable zone of its host. It is only the second confirmed habitable-zone planet within ~10 ly of Earth, after Proxima Centauri b.
The planet qualifies under the Planetary Habitability Laboratory’s habitable-worlds-catalog criteria (~70 of 5,000+ known exoplanets qualify) and is flagged as a prime target for future direct-imaging and atmospheric characterization by the habitable-worlds-observatory and LIFE.
A 2026 atmosphere confirmation on lhs-1140b — a comparable nearby M-dwarf habitable-zone super-Earth — found its host star’s X-ray flux (~10x Earth’s) far below Proxima Centauri’s (~400x, which has likely sterilized Proxima Centauri b), suggesting LHS 1140b may be substantially more favorable to surface life than GJ 887 d depending on GJ 887’s activity level (src-lhs-1140b-earthlike-atmosphere-2026-07).
Confirmation used 101 new harps radial-velocity measurements plus 12 from espresso on the very-large-telescope. A renewed observing campaign established the host star’s ~39-day rotation period, enabling disentanglement of stellar magnetic activity from the planetary signal that could not be resolved in the original 2020 analysis.
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Related
- gj-887, exoplanet-habitability, habitable-worlds-catalog
- gj-3378b — another recently mass/orbit-refined M-dwarf habitable-zone super-Earth (June 2026)
- habitable-worlds-observatory, life-interferometer
- direct-imaging, biosignatures
- alpha-centauri-a — another recent nearby habitable-zone candidate
- lhs-1140b, lhs-1140 — comparable M-dwarf habitable-zone super-Earth with a 2026-confirmed atmosphere