For years, astronomers have been hunting for planets capable of supporting life. Those efforts have relied on ground-based telescopes and spacecraft, in an attempt to identify clues about the conditions of worlds thousands of light years away. But the entire search depends on one fundamental, widely-accepted premise — that these planets must exist within the "habitable zone," a narrow band around other stars where an orbiting planet’s surface would not be too hot, but also not too cold, to support liquid water. Now, several astronomers are making a provocative suggestion: broaden the search far beyond planets like Earth, to include other strange worlds, from Dune-like planets with almost no liquid water, to gaseous giants with...
via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/2/4294156/habitable-zone-should-be-extended-scientists-say
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