JWST detects water vapour in atmosphere of nearby super-Earth
The signal, drawn from 18 transit observations, is the strongest yet for a rocky world in the habitable zone.
WorldHouse Desk·June 30, 2026, 6:00 am·1 min read
A team led by Cambridge and MIT astronomers has published the result in Nature today. The planet, LHS-1140 b, orbits a red dwarf 41 light years from Earth.
The authors are careful: water vapour is not life, and the signal is consistent with a thick steam atmosphere rather than a temperate ocean world. But it is, they write, "the most promising target we currently have".
