A new paper published today provides a new viewpoint on the habitability of planets, and itscodependence on inhabitance of those same planets. The paper, by Colin Goldblatt of the University of Victoria, examines the influence of life on the atmospheric composition of a planet, and finds the habitability of a planet is intrinsically linked to the presence of life. The work also shows that several 'habitable states' are capable of existing at the same distance from a host star, owing to the effect of biology on the atmosphere.

The paper is available on the Physics preprint ArXiv: arXiv-1603.00950