Higher scorer on the easy scale: Gliese 832c and potential habitability

To find a nearby exoplanet similar to Earth is the hope and the challenge. Even for Gliese 832c - a possible super-Earth only 16 light years away - discovering how comparable it is to our home planet is super-tricky. At present, habitability is measured in terms of similarity to Earth, so some rate an exoplanet's potential via the Earth Similarity Index (ESI). However, for astronomers like Robert Wittenmyer, part of the team that discovered Gliese 832c, reducing a planet's habitability to a few ...