Scientists have discovered the strongest evidence yet of a rocky planet with an atmosphere outside the solar system, challenging previous notions that small planets that orbit closely to their stars are unable to sustain a thick blanket of gases.

TOI-561 b orbits a 10-billion-year-old star located about 280 light-years from Earth and has a vast magma ocean. Using NASA’s Webb Space Telescope, a team of researchers probed the ultra-hot super-Earth exoplanet and found evidence suggesting it’s surrounded by a thick atmosphere. The new findings explain the planet’s unusually low density and help scientists better understand rocky worlds beyond the reaches of our own solar system.

Super-Earth

The peculiar world was first discovered in 2020 and is the innermost of at least three planets orbiti

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