If scientists are good at one thing, it’s discovering new things such as cures, or planets, or stars, or even breaking down DNA code, but when you’re astronomers you go out and discover something new outside of our solar system. A team of astronomers led by Dr. David Kipping, who is an assistant professor at Columbia University, spotted what could be the first exomoon orbiting an exoplanet.
The Hubble Space Telescope was used by researchers who have identified the exomoon called Kelper-1625b that is orbiting the star Kelper-1625 that’s 4,000 light years away. A National Science Foundation graduate, Alex Teachey from Columbia University was part of the research team and emailed Fox News on the discovery.
It would be a pretty big deal if this exomoon candidate turns out to be real, because it would be the first of its kind, and moons stand to tell us quite a bit about our solar system and other star systems. This could provide vital clues about how star systems form and evolve.
Reports on the exomoon state it may have comparable size and mass as one of the planets in our solar system, Neptune and it’s circling around a planet that’s about the size of Jupiter, but has 10 times more mass.
If it turns out to be, as we’ve suspected, a massive Jupiter-like planet with a moon roughly the size of Neptune, it’s very strange, and not like anything astronomers have expected to exist out there. And that might tell you there’s really some strange stuff going on elsewhere, not at all like what we see in our neighborhood.
It’s awesome to hear about the first exomoon to be discovered orbiting around an exoplanet. What do you guys think about the first discovering of an exomoon? Let us know by leaving your comments below or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
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