I see no actual atmospheric spectra of any kind. All I see are simulations and models. This is all well and good, but someone ****ed up telling this to the media (or the media did, which is more than possible). Until I see actual spectra taken of Gliese 581d's atmosphere, this is overblown, and I will maintain that the Yahoo article is blatantly false. Those spectra are going to be a long time coming, too, as I recall that the Gliese 581 system does not have any transiting planets on our line of sight.
EDIT: This is the most recent paper they've posted to the ArXiv, which I think is what these press releases are getting based off of.
It's more simulations. There is not a confirmation of the first habitable exoplanet at all, only that it may lie in the habitable zone for some plausible cases of atmospheric composition.
Yep, you're right. The study is using atmospheric modelling to determine what kind of atmospheric compositions and pressures could make the planet potentially habitable. They found that, quote, "atmospheres with over 10 bar CO2 and varying amounts of background gas (e.g., N2) yield global mean temperatures above 0°C for both land and ocean-covered surfaces."
Somewhere between the study and the press article someone ****ed up and said that the planet actually had a CO2 atmosphere.
Gravity is twice what is on Earth, doubling the weight of anyone standing on the surface, and the atmosphere is dense with carbon dioxide.
****ing press release idiocy. Seriously.
Reminds me of that University of Alberta thing dealing with dichloroacetate. The reporter who necroed the issue back from 2007 was talking about how mitochondria were cells, and how they needed to be activated in order to kill cancer.
