{"id":234966,"date":"2026-04-10T22:04:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/webb-telescope-spots-impossible-atmosphere-on-ancient-super-earth"},"modified":"2026-04-10T22:04:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:04:25","slug":"webb-telescope-spots-impossible-atmosphere-on-ancient-super-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/webb-telescope-spots-impossible-atmosphere-on-ancient-super-earth","title":{"rendered":"Webb Telescope spots \u201cimpossible\u201d atmosphere on ancient super-Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/webb-telescope-spots-impossible-atmosphere-on-ancient-super-earth2.webp\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A scorching \u201clava world\u201d once thought barren may actually be wrapped in a thick, mysterious atmosphere. Astronomers have uncovered surprising evidence of a thick atmosphere surrounding TOI-561 b, a scorching, fast-orbiting rocky planet once thought too extreme to hold onto any gas. Using NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope, researchers found the planet is far cooler than expected for a bare rock, hinting at a heat-distributing atmosphere above a churning magma ocean. This strange world\u2014where a year lasts just over 10 hours and one side is locked in eternal daylight\u2014may even be rich in volatile materials, behaving like a \u201cwet lava ball.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A team of astronomers led by Carnegie has uncovered the clearest evidence yet that a rocky planet outside our Solar System has an atmosphere. Using NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the researchers identified signs of gas surrounding an unusual target: an ancient, extremely hot super Earth that likely has a surface covered by molten rock. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n<p>The planet, known as TOI-561 b, has about twice the mass of Earth but is dramatically different in almost every other way. It orbits extremely close to its star, at a distance just one fortieth that of Mercury from the Sun. Even though its star is slightly smaller and cooler than our Sun, the planet\u2019s tight orbit means it completes a full year in only 10.56 hours. One side constantly faces the star, leaving it locked in permanent daylight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A scorching \u201clava world\u201d once thought barren may actually be wrapped in a thick, mysterious atmosphere. Astronomers have uncovered surprising evidence of a thick atmosphere surrounding TOI-561 b, a scorching, fast-orbiting rocky planet once thought too extreme to hold onto any gas. Using NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope, researchers found the planet is far cooler [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}