News Astronomy

This “exotic weirdo” exoplanet has a rocky surface and an atmosphere

The planet is in the habitable zone of a small, nearby star

illustration: front-right is a mostly dark exoplanet with a red hue and back left is a smaller white-ish planet with a glowing red hue and a smaller black dot appearing in the white hue

Exoplanet LHS 1140b, illustrated in the foreground, likely has a rocky surface and an atmosphere rich in helium. In the background, a second planet orbits the same star, with no discernible atmosphere.

Melissa Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

By Lisa Grossman

For the first time, astronomers have detected an atmosphere around a rocky planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a nearby star.