I’m hopeful that other planets around M dwarfs could keep their atmospheres, says Laura Kreidberg, a researcher at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, about a new study using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope provides a rare glimpse of conditions on the surface of a rocky planet, LHS 3844b, located 48.6 light-years from Earth. “The terrestrial planets in our solar system are enormously diverse, and I expect the same will be true for exoplanet systems.”
“This is a remarkable time in human history and a huge leap for our understanding of our place in the universe,” said astronomer Keivan Stassun of Vanderbilt University, a member of the TESS science team that will observe 400,000 stars across the whole sky to catch a glimpse of an exoplanet transiting across the face of its star. The stars selected are bright, cool dwarfs, with temperatures roughly between 2,700 and 5,000 degrees Kelvin. The closest are only approximately 6 light-years from Earth.
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