Quote:
Originally Posted by Xurtio
Since the 1980's, the way planets are detected is through doppler spectroscopy. High-dispersion spectroscopy is what they are starting to use to detect whether planets have a chemical composition complex enough to support life or not.
Either way, I won't get my hopes up until there's solid evidence.
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This is basically what I mentioned, but knowing a planet's chemical composition generally does not tell us if there's life on it. And also as I mentioned, the greater the mass of a planet, the easier it is to detect this way and so as a method, it favours detection of big planets which tend to be inhospitable gas giants.