SURPRISING SIGNS OF AN ATMOSPHERE AROUND A TINY WORLD, BILLIONS OF MILES AWAY

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

Japanese astronomers have discovered a small world about 3.5 billion miles from the Sun that appears to be swaddled in a layer of air. The discovery of an atmosphere is surprising, as the 300-mile-wide celestial body shouldn't have a strong enough gravitational pull to keep it in place. Also, temperatures in that quadrant are so cold that most of the molecules that exist as gases in Earth's atmosphere freeze solid. The atmosphere is very thin, with only a few gas molecules to exert any pressure.