We won't get wild-eyed, but the conditions for our familiar forms of carbon based life are present out there, 49 light years, orbiting rapidly -- on what would be a 25 day local solar year, there.
Tantalizing -- and NASA revealed it whilst I was off-grid, last week. So here is the NYT's "catch up":
“. . .When there’s one, there’s more in exoplanets,” said Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at M.I.T. who was not involved in the study. “Hopefully this is the start of something new.”
An atmosphere is vital for habitability because it helps a planet hold on to water, regulates the climate and protects the surface from space radiation. Scientists have found atmospheres on giant gas planets but have been uncertain whether rocky worlds, which are smaller and more difficult to detect, could retain their atmospheres, too.
“This is one clear, resounding yes,” said Dr. Cherubim, who spent years building a theoretical model of what the atmosphere around a rocky planet might look like. Under certain conditions, he found, lighter elements like helium would more readily escape the atmosphere. He identified LHS 1140b as a planet that could be actively losing helium to space.
LHS 1140b orbits around a red dwarf, the most common type of star in our galaxy. Because red dwarfs are smaller and cooler than other types of stars, it is easier to detect rocky planets around them. But red dwarfs are also energetic, spewing violent flares of radiation that can strip away the atmospheres of nearby planets. . . .
Now you know. Smiling into a cool clear sunset -- we may no longer desperately miss the now lost Arecibo 'scope, afterall.
नमस्ते
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