Planet may have formed new atmosphere through volcanic activity

Details: The planet — named GJ 1132 b — was once enveloped in a thick hydrogen atmosphere that was lost to space because of extreme radiation coming from its host star.

• But now, according to observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, the planet appears to have lost that thick atmosphere only to develop a new one thanks to volcanic eruptions.
• "We first thought that these highly irradiated planets could be pretty boring because we believed that they lost their atmospheres," Raissa Estrela, an author of a new study about the planet in The Astronomical Journal said in a statement.
• "But we looked at existing observations of this planet with Hubble and said, 'Oh no, there is an atmosphere there.'"

The big picture: GJ 1132 b and Earth have similar densities, ages and sizes, but the two planets are far from twins, according to NASA.

• The distant planet orbits very close to its relatively small red dwarf star, circling it once every 1.5 Earth days.
• The world's new atmosphere is also effectively poison — composed of hydrogen cyanide, methane and other gases.