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A 2026 study reports helium escaping from LHS 1140b, a rocky exoplanet in its star’s habitable zone. The researchers detected helium absorption in observations from 2024, but not in a 2025 observation. That is evidence of atmospheric escape—not evidence of life. The connection to habitability is more cautious: the planet’s location makes it scientifically interesting, and a separate theoretical study argues that life might be possible in some helium-rich atmospheres.
What astronomers saw at LHS 1140b
In a preprint posted on 15 July 2026, Collin Cherubim and colleagues reported near-infrared observations of LHS 1140b during transits across its star. They found absorption associated with helium escaping from the planet in their 2024 data, but no helium detection in an observation from 2025. The authors interpret the contrast as evidence that atmospheric escape varies over time.
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A non-detection does not mean the escape stopped. The study notes that weaker helium absorption could have fallen below the 2025 observation’s detection limit. The same study reported no helium absorption detection from the smaller, more strongly irradiated companion LHS 1140c in its 2024 data.
How a helium “leak” is detected
“Leak” is a shorthand for gas flowing away from a planet into space. Astronomers do not see helium escaping as a visible stream. Instead, they measure starlight filtered through the planet’s extended atmosphere during a transit and look for absorption at wavelengths associated with helium. As NASA’s Hubble team explains, each atmospheric element blocks light at particular wavelengths, leaving absorption lines in the star’s spectrum.
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The LHS 1140b study attributes the 2024 signal to a hydrodynamic outflow heated by X-ray and extreme-ultraviolet radiation from the host star. The authors considered stellar activity and contamination from Earth’s atmosphere as alternative explanations and report excluding them. The observation concerns gas loss and the planet’s upper atmosphere; it does not identify a biological substance.
Why the habitable-zone location matters—and what it does not mean
LHS 1140b is described as a rocky planet in its star’s habitable zone. That label refers to its orbit and the possibility that conditions could allow liquid water. It does not show that the planet has surface liquid water, a suitable climate, or any life. The helium observations do not establish those conditions either.
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The result is relevant to habitability because atmospheric escape can change a planet’s atmosphere, while a potentially temperate rocky world is a natural place to investigate. But the reported helium signal is not a biosignature: it is evidence about the movement of atmospheric gas, not a sign that organisms produced it.
Could life exist in a helium-rich atmosphere?
A separate preprint by Sara Seager and Janusz J. Petkowski, posted on 16 August 2026, argues theoretically that helium-dominated atmospheres could be compatible with life if essential metabolic requirements were available. The authors suggest helium’s chemical inertness could leave biosignature gases comparatively unobscured.
That proposal is a general theoretical possibility, not a finding about LHS 1140b. The helium-escape observations do not show that the planet’s atmosphere is helium-dominated throughout, and neither study establishes that life exists there. No published statistic estimating the chance of life on LHS 1140b, and no direct evidence of life on the planet, is reported in the cited sources.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How this finding fits the history of exoplanet helium observations
The first reported detection of helium in an exoplanet atmosphere came in 2018, from the warm gas giant WASP-107b. Jessica Spake and colleagues reported metastable helium absorption at 10,833 angstroms at 4.5 standard deviations. For that planet, they estimated atmospheric loss at 1010 to 3 × 1011 grams per second, equivalent in their estimate to 0.1–4% of its total mass per billion years. Those measurements apply to WASP-107b, not LHS 1140b.
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Spake described the result as demonstrating “a new technique to study upper layers of exoplanet atmospheres in a wider range of planets,” in a statement quoted by NASA’s Hubble team. The LHS 1140b report extends helium-escape observations to a rocky planet in a habitable-zone orbit, but it does not provide a basis for transferring WASP-107b’s escape-rate estimates to this different world.
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