New study has shone a new light on searching for habitable worlds

When astronomers discovered the first planet outside our solar system, it was orbiting a pulsar, one of the most extreme, radiation-blasted environments imaginable. Not exactly the kind of place you'd expect to find a planet, let alone a representative one. The first confirmed exoplanet was an oddity, a product of the fact that pulsar timing is extraordinarily sensitive, not a reflection of what planets are typically like.