Listening practice: The atmosphere around a distant rocky world

How do you find air around a planet that is forty-eight light-years away? You do not take a photograph of the air. You watch what the planet does to starlight. In July twenty twenty-six, researchers reported strong evidence that a rocky world called L H S one one four zero b has an atmosphere. It orbits a small red dwarf in a temperate region that astronomers call the habitable zone. That phrase means the planet receives a level of energy where liquid water could exist under the right conditions. It does not mean that water or life has been found. The planet is about five point six times Earth's mass, about one point seven times Earth's radius, and it goes around its star once every twenty-four point seven days. Those numbers make it an interesting place to test a difficult question: can a rocky planet keep an atmosphere for billions of years?