This is not the first time Kipping’s team has made such a discovery. Already in 2018, experts discovered the first candidate for the month. The huge body is as big as Neptune and orbits an exoplanet called Kepler 1625b.
NASA has released spooky sounds from space. A chill runs down their spines
A closer understanding of the moons, such as their origin, their ability to support life, and their role in the potential habitability of their planet, could lead to a deeper understanding of how planetary systems originate and evolve.
Astronomers have deliberately tried to find a new moon using logic. They decided to study the ice gas giants discovered by Kepler’s telescope on their mission. It started in 2009 and lasted for nine years. They focused on this type of planet because the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn have the most moons in our system.
Stubborn signal
But only one of the seventy planets surveyed revealed an accompanying signal, which could be the moon. Experts have calculated that there is only a one percent probability that it is something else. “It’s a stubborn signal. We tried everything we had, but it still persists, “said Kipping.
Kipping and his team are still working to confirm that their first discovery in 2018 is indeed an exo moon. The new body probably faces the same fate. Further observations will be needed with the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope to finally confirm that this is the case. These observations are due to take place in 2023. Meanwhile, a team of scientists continues to gather evidence about the authenticity of their claims.
Say hello to the newly discovered moon, maybe?
The ‘exomoon’s’ size could be somewhere between that of Neptune and the #Earth ?#Space pic.twitter.com/1MplTUEkB0— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) January 13, 2022
The whole process is slowed down by the fact that both moons orbit their planet for more than one Earth year. “The final confirmation requires that the transitions of the month be repeated several times,” Kipping said. “The fact that these months have such a long circulation period means that we only have two crossings here so far. Unfortunately, this is not enough to see the required series of monthly transitions, which we need to confirm the detection, “he added.
Once they defend their claims, they prove that exomons are as common as exoplanets.
Space Phenomena of 2022: Humans will experience two eclipses and visible planets
The first planet outside our solar system was discovered by astronomers in the 1990s. Many other planets were discovered thanks to the launch of the Kepler Telescope. He was tasked with finding Earth-like planets outside our system. “The planets are completely different from our system, but they have revolutionized our understanding of how planetary systems are formed,” Kipping explained.
#OTD in 2010, NASA announced that the Kepler Space Telescope discovered its first five exoplanets. Designed to find Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars, the Kepler mission continuously and simultaneously observed more than 150,000 stars. pic.twitter.com/YCMqhr5Z9a
– NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) January 5, 2022
According to Kipping, the two months they study are likely to be unusually large compared to other ex-months. “The first discoveries in any study are usually something strange, unusual. In this case, with our limited technology, it is easiest to find the biggest months, “he added.
Hunt for gas giants
Both months share several characteristics. They are probably gaseous bodies, which indicates their size and the fact that they are both far from their host stars. Even though there are more than two hundred of these natural satellites in our solar system, the hunt for their interstellar brothers has largely failed. The main reason is their smaller size, which makes them difficult to detect than exoplanets.
There is water on the moon. Pictures of the Chinese truck prove it, scientists said
Astronomers have already discovered over four thousand exoplanets outside the solar system. But finding them was not easy. Many of them have been detected by astronomers using the transit method or by searching for glare in the starlight as the planet passes in front of its star. However, finding exomiles in the same way is much more difficult, because the decrease in light is only slight due to their size.
It is possible that both exomons were also once planets, which eventually larger planets, such as Kepler 1625b and Kepler 1708b, drew into their orbits. According to astronomers, this is one of the three main theories of how the moons form. Others are that two cosmic bodies collide and the moon is formed from material that breaks away from them. According to the third theory, they arise from the gas and dust that swirls around the stars and which created the planets in the early days of the solar system.
– .
