New 'Habitability Index' Could Help Guide Search for Alien Life

The "habitability index" metric could help guide the operations of future observatories, such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), that will scan exoplanet atmospheres for signs of life, scientists said. "Basically, we've devised a way to take all the observational data that are available and develop a prioritization scheme so that as we move into a time when there are hundreds of targets available, we might be able to say, 'OK, that's the one we want to start with," study lead author Ro