RE: Although Close to Earth, this Planet Apparently Not Livable

I'm going to be blunt in saying this: We have no way to be able to discernibly tell without the use of a probe, the atmospheric conditions of a distant planet. So everything what you've posted above is pure Speculation, Even NASA has said that it's atmosphere "Could" have been destroyed by radiation but not definitely. Nevertheless the point of what I am trying to say is that these press releases are all speculation and that's fine, but you writing a title saying that it is "apparently not livable" is wrong and misleading as you are giving an absolute to a guess/speculation which cannot be done.

The only two things that we can measure of far distant planets is the radius (based on angle and path distance and speed of light), and the approximate mass based on scaled-density. To say anything definite, and contrary at this stage (without a probe) is misleading, and wrong.