In the search for extraterrestrial life, it makes sense to first look for rocky planets with an atmosphere, like Earth. Without an atmosphere, a planet can’t have surface water. But of the more than 6,300 exoplanets cataloged thus far, the vast majority are not rocky, and only a handful of the rocky worlds appear to have an atmosphere.

In a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a group led by University of Chicago scientist Brandon Park Coy reports another: a rocky super-Earth 154 light-years away in the constellation Pisces. Named HD 3,167 b, this very hot “lava world” zips around its host star in just one Earth day.

“What’s so surprising is that the closer a rocky planet orbits its star, the harder it should be to have an atmosphere, because it’s bombarded by stellar wind and gets more high-energy photons from the star. But it seems that many of these lava worlds do,” explained Edwin Kite, UChicago associate professor of geophysical sciences and co-author of the study. “These planets are too hot for life, but by studying them, we can say something about the processes that matter for other rocky worlds.”