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Astrophysics

Quest for a habitable world

A neat technique, applied to the brightest transiting extrasolar planet known, identifies an indisputable signature of water vapour in the planet's atmosphere. The method might be used to probe a nearby habitable world.

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Figure 1: A home for life as we don't know it?

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Deming, D. Quest for a habitable world. Nature 456, 714–715 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/456714a

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