Hubble Finds Evidence that a New Atmosphere May Have Formed on a Rocky Exoplanet (no text)

Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found evidence that a planet orbiting a distant star that may have lost its atmosphere but gained a second one through volcanic activity. The planet, GJ 1132 b, is hypothesized to have begun as a gaseous world with a thick hydrogen blanket of atmosphere. Starting out at several times the diameter of Earth, this so-called “sub-Neptune” is believed to have quickly lost its primordial hyodrogen and helium atmosphere due to the intense radiation of the hot, young star it orbits. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Robert Hurt