NASA’s latest discovery has everyone buzzing about a new ‘super-Earth’, a planet that might just have the potential to support life. The cosmos continues to amaze us with its endless mysteries and seemingly boundless possibilities.
Human curiosity about life beyond our planet is nothing new, but the answers have always seemed just out of reach—until now, perhaps.
Thanks to the cutting-edge capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an impressive team of international scientists has recently turned their focus to the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet known as LHS 1140 b.
Discovered in 2017, LHS 1140 b was initially noted for being six times the mass of Earth. It captivated experts with the possibility of having oceans of liquid water and a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, much like our own world.
Charles Cadieux of Université de Montréal shared an exciting insight, “Of all currently known temperate exoplanets, LHS 1140 b could well be our best bet to one day indirectly confirm liquid water on the surface of an alien world beyond our solar system. This would be a major milestone in the search for potentially habitable exoplanets.”
The mystery deepens with the peculiar observation that the planet is less massive than expected for its size. This anomaly led scientists to speculate whether it might be a gas-heavy ‘mini-neptune’ or a water-rich ‘mega-Earth’.
To get to the bottom of it, NASA combined data from various telescopes, including JWST, Hubble, and Spitzer. This comprehensive analysis leads them to believe that LHS 1140 b is more akin to a ‘water world’ or ‘snowball’ with a solid rocky core, as opposed to a gaseous mini-neptune.
New insights suggest that LHS 1140 b may share more features with Earth, potentially harboring a thick, life-sustaining atmosphere.
Professor René Doyon, who oversaw the study, emphasized the need for further research: “The current hint of a nitrogen-rich atmosphere begs for confirmation with more data. We need at least one more year of observations to confirm that LHS 1140 b has an atmosphere, and likely two or three more to detect carbon dioxide.”