Space telescope offers rare glimpse of exoplanet

WASHINGTON - Direct observations from a NASA space telescope have for the first time revealed the atmospheric void of a rocky, Earth-sized world beyond our own solar system orbiting the most common type of star in the galaxy, according to a study released on Monday.

The research, published in the scientific journal Nature, also shows the distant planet's surface is likely to resemble the barren exterior of the Earth's moon or the planet Mercury, possibly covered in dark volcanic rock.

The planet lies about 48.6 light-years from Earth and is one of more than 4,000 so-called exoplanets identified over the past two decades circling distant stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way.