Possible first sighting of an exomoon

Link to Source Article: Possible first sighting of an exomoon

(Phys.org)—A team led by David Kipping of Columbia University has spotted what might be the first evidence of an exomoon. They have written a paper describing their findings and have uploaded it to the arXiv preprint server.

An exomoon is a moon orbiting an exoplanet. Many moons have been found in our solar system and many planets outside of it, but to date, no one has captured evidence of a moon orbiting one of those exoplanets. This might change, as the team studying data from the Kepler Space Telescope believe they have found strong evidence for a moon orbiting a planet which is itself orbiting a star called Kepler-1625. Read more at:

Exoplanets are found by noting the dimming of stars that occurs as a planet passes between Earth and the star. A moon would be found in roughly the same way, the researchers note, by looking for dimming that occurs in the light reflected from a planet caused by the transit of a moon. Kipping and his team report that they recorded three such dippings as the planet made three trips around its star.

This report is still unverified by independent confirmation, so it could still be a data anomaly. However, if it pas out, it could be quite an interesting test of this satellite transit technique. This candidate is about 4000 LY away, so if it works on this one, the odds are much better for use on closer celestial objects.

I hope they can get the Hubble to confirm their findings sooner than they expect.

a reply to: Krakatoa

Have to read a bit more in to this.

Very cool indeed.

Thanks for posting.

a reply to: Krakatoa

If it rings true, yet another milestone. Exciting times.

a reply to: Krakatoa

Cool, learn a new word today...exomoon

a reply to: Krakatoa

It seems by the definition, that our moon is an exomoon, along with the other planets in this system???? Right???

An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun.

This systems orbits a start that orbits a larger star in the center....Am I getting this right?

I'm just trying to figure out why this is soo exciting?

Looking at what we know about our own solar system, only 2 out of 9 planets (yes I included Pluto) do not have moons so it stands to reason that planets orbiting stars other than our sun are likely to have roughly a 70% probability of having their own moons and that favours the outer planets rather than the inner ones.

Now we are finding evidence to confirm it somewhat. Perhaps the likelihood of moons is a function of distance from the sun combined with the mass of the planet but we need a lot more statistical data to be certain so this find is a step in that direction.

progress is always a good thing!

Fascinating who would have ever even imanged finding a exoplanet 70 years agaio now we are finding something as small as a moon .
Guess earths is getting poplar we are now being mooned .

originally posted by: SirKonstantin
a reply to: Krakatoa

It seems by the definition, that our moon is an exomoon, along with the other planets in this system???? Right???

An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun.

This systems orbits a start that orbits a larger star in the center....Am I getting this right?

Exoplanets orbit stars other than our Sun; exomoons orbit those exoplanets.

Think of a Jupiter-like or Saturn-like exoplanet around another far away star. Exomoons would be similar to the moons that orbit Jupiter and Saturn (such as Europa, Titan, and Enceladus) but would instead be around those Jupiter-like or Saturn-like exoplanets.

I'm just trying to figure out why this is soo exciting?

Personally I find it exciting that we have the technology and cleverness to be able to detect an exomoon -- which are very tiny and far away.

It's also exciting to me because it adds to the number possible places that may harbor other life. When thinking about all of the places life elsewhere could exist, we should also consider exomoons and not just exoplanets.

We already have a few moons in our own solar system on which scientists think there could be life (Enceladus, Titan, Europa, plus a few others). It is likely that exomoons orbiting exoplanets could also be habitable for life.