Or at least like the desert. For a number of reasons, "land planets" -- a la Arrakis in Dune -- are more likely to be habitable than "aqua planets." Hurray desert!
The scientists reasoned that the scarcity of water on a land planet might actually help it have a larger habitable zone around its star. There could be several reasons for this. For one thing, a land planet has less water to become snow and ice, which reflect sunlight back into space. As such, it can in principle absorb more heat to better resist global freezing, enlarging the cold outer limits of its habitable zone. In addition, the dearth of water in a land planet's dry atmosphere makes it trap less heat than an aqua planet, helping it avoid a runaway greenhouse effect and expanding the inner, hotter edge of its habitable zone. Also, the less water there is in the atmosphere, the less there is for ultraviolet radiation to break up into hydrogen and oxygen.
