A rocky planet that circles a small star nearly 40 light-years from Earth is hot and has little or no atmosphere, a new study suggests. The finding raises questions about the possibility of atmospheres on the other orbs in the planetary system.
At the center of the system is the red dwarf star dubbed TRAPPIST-1; it hosts seven known planets with masses ranging from 0.3 to 1.4 times Earth’s, a few of which could hold liquid water (SN: 2/22/17; 3/19/18). The largest, TRAPPIST-1b, is the closest to its parent star and receives about four times the radiation Earth receives from the sun, says Thomas Greene, an astrobiologist at NASA’s
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