Astronomers have discovered a bizarre, Neptune-sized exoplanet located less than 100 light-years from Earth that’s shedding its atmosphere so quickly it may help researchers finally answer the long-standing question: Where did all the hot Neptunes go?

According to the new research, published December 13 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, the shrinking world, named GJ 3470b, is rapidly losing its atmosphere as it’s bombarded by a steady stream of energetic charged particles from it