{"id":696771,"date":"2026-07-17T14:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696771\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T14:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:38:07","slug":"first-atmosphere-found-around-earth-like-planet-lhs-1140b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696771\/","title":{"rendered":"First atmosphere found around Earth-like planet LHS 1140b"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers have found the first atmosphere surrounding an Earth-like, rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone of a distant star.<\/p>\n

The researchers say that their discovery provides the strongest evidence yet that worlds with conditions similar to Earth could exist beyond our solar system.<\/p>\n

The gas detected in the atmosphere is helium, which would not be able to support life, but other gasses may also be present.<\/p>\n

The lead author, Dr Collin Cherubim of Harvard University, described the discovery as “a big deal”.<\/p>\n

“This is the first time anyone has found an atmosphere on a rocky planet in the habitable zone of another star.”<\/p>\n

The planet, called LHS 1140 b, is 48 light-years from Earth orbiting a red star much smaller and cooler than our Sun. <\/p>\n

More than 6,000 worlds have been discovered orbiting distant stars. But the new discovery is significant because it brings us a step closer to one of the biggest prizes in science: the discovery of life on another world.<\/p>\n

The researchers, writing in the journal Science, external<\/a>, are clear \u2013 they have not done that, at least not yet. But for a planet to support life it has to have water and for that it has to be the right distance from its star: not too close because it will be too hot and not too far, because it will be too cold \u2013 but somewhere in between where it will be “just right”. <\/p>\n

Planetary scientists call this the “Goldilocks zone”, after the fairy tale girl who was fussy about the temperature of her porridge.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of planets have been found in the Goldilocks zones of their respective stars \u2013 but only a few dozen are small and rocky \u2013 like our own Earth \u2013 which is another tick for a planet’s ability to support life. <\/p>\n

But none of those have been found to have an atmosphere. <\/p>\n

Until now.<\/p>\n

But the only gas discovered in the atmosphere so far is helium, probably in the upper atmosphere, which on its own would not support life. <\/p>\n

But there may be other, more life-sustaining gases, lower down. Dr David Charbonneau, also from Harvard, said that the important thing was the discovery of an Earth-like planet outside of our solar system with an atmosphere.<\/p>\n

“People are generally interested in the big questions: Are we alone? Is there life beyond the Earth or beyond our solar system? To that end, this study reveals the first atmosphere discovered on a rocky planet in the habitable zone of a star outside of our solar system,” he said.<\/p>\n

LHS 1140b isn’t the only world under scrutiny in the search for life. K2-18b, a sub-Neptune with a possible water-rich interior, made headlines <\/a>when scientists spotted signs of dimethyl sulphide \u2014 a gas linked to marine life on Earth.<\/p>\n

But a Nasa-led reanalysis in 2025 found the signal too weak to confirm, and showed the gas can form without biology. <\/p>\n

The seven rocky worlds of TRAPPIST-1 remain tantalising, too: Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope ruled out an Earth-like atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1d, while TRAPPIST-1e’s data stay frustratingly inconclusive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have found the first atmosphere surrounding an Earth-like, rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-696771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}