Using ground-based telescopes, an international team of astronomers has identified an atmosphere around the exoplanet GJ 1132b. Orbiting a red dwarf star a mere 39 light-years away this world is only about half again as large and massive as Earth, making it the smallest exoplanet to be discovered thus far with an atmosphere.
Unfortunately that likely means that although GJ 1132b is Earth-sized it’s not Earth-like. In order to even be detected in the manner that it was the atmosphere must be extremely thick, making this exoplanet more similar to Venus than Earth.
“An atmosphere that we would think of as Earth-like would be completely invisible to these observations, and to all other currently existing telescopes,” said Tom Louden, a physicist at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England (who wasn’t involved in the study.)
Lights in the Dark 