For the first time, scientists have found a rocky planet with an atmosphere orbiting in a star’s habitable zone. Researchers from Harvard University say the Earth-like world has conditions similar to those on Earth.
The exoplanet, LHS 1140 b, is 48 light-years from Earth. It orbits a red dwarf star at a distance close enough for water to remain liquid, but far enough away that it would not boil.
that’s awesome. it only take 500,000 years to get there. i have hope we can achieve this by 2050 since there are so many geniuses heading major corporations. i have it on good authority that elon musk himself is currently working on cracking the mysteries of wormholes when he’s not posting on twitter.
Red dwarf stars are tough environments though. Due to their internal high convection energy transfer mode they tend to erupt with massive solar flares, due to the much closer orbit required to be in the habitable zone this becomes a major issue. It could even strip atmospheres. Also, the closer orbit can result in tidal locking with one face always towards the star.
For the first time, scientists have found a rocky planet with an atmosphere orbiting in a star’s habitable zone.
That’s a lie: List of potentially habitable exoplanets
Also, why is this narrative pushed everywhere? The paper says nothing about “being the first”, it’s about escaping helium (also on Wikipedia now). And the planet was discovered in 2017. Determining the atmosphere composition from the light passing through, is also nothing new for exoplanets.
And LHS 1140b is not like earth, it’s a super-earth: nearly 2x as large and over 5x as heavy. But it is a ocean planet in the habitable zone of a red dwarf.
And lastly, that tabloid should at least add a publish date to it’s articles.Also, is this AI-written? Contradictions in two sentences!Posted 1:40 PM, Jul 22, 2026
It’s right below the by line before the article starts.
Pretty much agree with you on the rest of your points though. The “we found a planet we can live on!” articles that get recycled on slow news days and are always lazy poorly written garbage. This one is particularly lazy and bad.
These kinds of articles are frustrating because they also kill people’s trust in science. The scientists say one thing and the “journalists” twist it into clickbait bs. Now the term “Earth-like planet” means practically nothing. Venus would be considered an “Earth-like planet” by these standards.
Seriously, people are getting it filtered through crap and assume the original info was crap too.
Remember, assuming it isn’t AI generated to begin with, most “journalists” today have almost no experience with the subject and get paid a pittance, assuming they aren’t interns to start with. Clickbait titles are incredibly bad nowadays and have become the norm. I have to laugh at how deceptive they usually are.
Elon Musk just promised we’d have people there by 2027.
If 48 light years sounds realtively close, well it is, relatively. For comparison, It’s taken voyager 1 49 years to reach 1 light day away from earth. Traveling at a constant rate, it will reach 48 light years in in the year 860,457. Meanwhile, the universe is estimated to be 93 BILLION light-years wide.
One light year is an impossible distance to travel.
The use of light years is very deceptive. People see a small number and assume it is a modest distance.
Here you go
48 Light Years ≈ 282,174,017,912,813 Miles
48 Light Years ≈ 454,115,062,683,878 Kilometers
the universe is estimated to be 93 BILLION light-years wide.
Only the part we can see. There’s more.
Also, that measurement is 20 years old by now, so the current size should be 93 billion and 20 light years wide.
Isn’t space expanding as well, and faster than light too? So it ought to be even more than 20.
The universe is. The above measurements are for the observable universe, which is how much we can see from earth.
Nestle: …
…
…
I’m going. Bye everyone. I’ll miss you
You better pack a few hundred thousand years of snacks for the trip.
Well, some of you… (can I come along?)
Very cool discovery. But just to temper any overly excited reactions…
Whether the atmosphere could support life remains unknown.
Also LHS 1140 b is tidally locked to its red dwarf Star, which means one side of it is constantly facing the star and the other side is always saving away from the star. So the
fatfar side will be very, very cold. While the doesn’t rule out the possibilities of life or a breathable atmosphere, it does complicate all that.The far side will be very cold, but there will be some heat transfer through the atmosphere so it doesn’t necessarily mean life can’t exist there.
Being tidally locked could make evolution less dynamic than earth, but it also means there’s a Goldilocks zone in there that’s always around the right temperature and things could just migrate a little to the east or west to stay within that area. What I find a bit odd is that they would know the approximate gravity of the planet by now, but there’s no mention of that in the article. Makes me assume it’s bad. Probably too dense for anything but simple life forms.
We need a nice orange dwarf star planet within 15 percent of our own gravity and a good molten core, a moon or two, and a bunch of big ass blocker planets to keep most large asteroids from hitting it and a low enough amount of radioactive crap on it.
I’m trying to imagine the weather: Too hot on the sunny side…too cold on the dark side…and in the sunset/terminator region…sounds nice, but…no…superstorm cells and permanent hypercane-strength winds…maybe underground :/
I would think that the air towards the ground level would be cool and not terribly high speed. It would also always be coming from the same direction, so if it was too high, being on one side of a cliff should block it all.
True, but up till now we didn’t even know if a tidally locked planet around a red dwarf could even hold an atmosphere (since red dwarfs tend to have much more powerful x-ray flares, and planets sit much closer to them than our G-type sun). So the fact that this one does have lightweight Helium in the atmosphere would seem to significantly increase the odds that there’s life elsewhere, since red dwarfs are super common and if there’s 1 that can hold an atmosphere, odds are that there are many, many others.
But a habitable ring around the twilight portion sounds very cool and world build-y.
Ryloth from Star Wars where the people with the head tentacles are from is such a planet.
I’m pretty sure there was a Vin Diesel movie with that premise.
Aren’t there issues with constant and unsurvivable wind as atmosphere is heated on the sunward side and cold atmo from the leeward rushes in underneath?
From our understanding, life is likely to start in water - Not sure how much that’s impacted by winds
But I recon life can evolve in billions of directions, so over time something larger might survive on ground and in air
It’d be an interesting environment. What if the atmosphere was thin so the winds were fast, but not strong? Lots of variables to consider, and I’m sure if life could start, it’d find a niche to live in.
It’s not unsurvivable if the organisms there have evolved to survive it.
Reminds me of an excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens Of Titan: https://www.flickr.com/photos/romasita/2766136797
So the fat side will be very, very cold
Well, that’s why it has all that blubber! To keep it warm.
Damnit autocorrect!
But your reply genuinely made me chuckle.
I had a fantastic mental image of a blubbery planet, so we both got a good chuckle from this
amaze amaze amaze
Shouldn’t the atmosphere be, you know, around the planet. And not 48 light-years away.
Alt: “How the atmosphere got 48 ly from the planet I’ll never know.” - Groucho
ExxonMobil announced plans to destroy the planet a few minutes later
📰🗞️ OIL FOUND on LHS 1140b 📰🗞️
Researchers are not yet able to determine what the atmosphere is made of.
Cherubim and his team determined that helium is escaping from the exoplanet’s upper atmosphere.
So don’t hold your breath waiting to find out if there’s any sign of life.
but do hold your breath if you somehow end up there
That is freaking awesome!
But is i anything like Earth? That’s what I want to know.
It’s a rocky planet, in habitable zone with an atmosphere. So yes it like Earth in those ways.
All else is still to be learned.
