{"id":551825,"date":"2026-07-21T06:12:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/551825\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T06:12:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:12:19","slug":"earth-like-lhs-1140b-may-feature-the-first-atmosphere-found-on-exoplanet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/551825\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth-like LHS 1140b May Feature The First Atmosphere Found On Exoplanet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finding another planet outside of our solar system that can comfortably be called \u2018Earth-like\u2019 is one of those discoveries that \u2014 if confirmed \u2014 would be a major event. The complication here is that with every exoplanet that we discover through observations, determining the type of planet is hard enough, never mind figuring out whether it has an atmosphere, much less what\u2019s in that atmosphere. This makes a recent report<\/a> on LHS 1140 b rather exciting, as it strongly suggests that this super-Earth may have something close to an Earth-like atmosphere.<\/p>\n

In the paper<\/a> by [Collin Cherubim] and others in Science, the findings of helium occasionally escaping from its atmosphere have led to considerable excitement, as this time-variable atmospheric escape of helium suggests a helium-rich upper atmosphere that\u2019s further depleted in hydrogen.<\/p>\n

It should be noted, of course, that these assumptions are based on observations from roughly 49 light-years away, so there\u2019s always some room for later adjustments. Even if confirmed, the star that LHS 1140b<\/a> orbits is a red dwarf, with a nearly 25-day orbital period and light levels less than half of what Earth receives from the Sun. This would make the surface of LHS 1140b with its proposed oceans rather dim, even if it\u2019s conceivably at temperatures well within the comfort range of us Earth-based mammals.<\/p>\n

At 49 light-years distance, it\u2019s also not close enough that \u2014 barring an FTL drive \u2014 we could do direct observations or visitations, but if these results hold, it\u2019d be on the short list along with a number of other plausibly habitable exoplanets to check out once we build that first warp drive-powered starship<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finding another planet outside of our solar system that can comfortably be called \u2018Earth-like\u2019 is one of those…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-551825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}