A very rare exoluna may have finally been recognized

space is full mystery. We know very little about Earth and the Solar System, or in any case there are things that we feel exist, but have no evidence of. Or we haven’t seen it before. Or it is so mysterious that it remains a mystery to scientists.

One of those things was esolune. But in the end we might have identified one.

new exoluna

Scientists always need proof of their results. And if the first exoluna is identified in 2018Now, again, seeing a similar body Witness the discovery, published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.

Exoluna is an existing moon outside the solar system. the new Isolona discovery is giant, and orbiting an exoplanet (according to the same reasoning, an exoplanet or, as in this case, even Outside the Milky Way) This is called Kepler 1708 B, 5500 light-years from Earth.

The new celestial body is large 2.6 times on Earth, which is an unparalleled scale among all the moons in the solar system. Just so we understand, our Moon is 3.7 times smaller than the Earth. over there first and the moon, identified in 2018, was the size of the planet Neptune and orbiting an exoplanet Kepler 1625 b.

“We’ve found up to 10,000 celestial bodies that could be exoplanets,” explains David Kipping, author of the two discoveries. exolunas are even rarer“.

The two possible exolunas share some characteristics: they may be invader, I leaked, and me far from their planet from ref. It is possible that both are in fact planets, trapped in the orbits of Kepler 1708b and Kepler 1625b, which are much larger.

Hard to find items

In fact, the two identified by Kipping still go through review processAt this point, they are celestial bodies Candidates to be exolune.

But everyone hopes for it, precisely because it is very difficult to detect them, especially because small size compared to the outer planets.

Of the 10 thousand celestial bodies that could be exoplanets, which we talked about earlier, four thousand were confirmed, but finding them was not easy. Usually transit methodThat is, looking for a decrease in starlight when a planet passes in front of it. But for the moons this will be the decrease Even milder, and therefore more difficult, to intercept it.

To find this possible second moon, Kipping and his team used Previous mission data Kepler from NASA to check some The coldest gas giant exoplanets found by the telescope. They choose the gaseous planets because the gaseous planets in our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, have the most moons.

Of the 70 planets they studied, Only one detection of light signal Represents a companion who appears to be a moon. There is only a file1% chance was something else.

According to Kipping, the other exoons are unlikely to be as large as the candidates already identified. Perhaps they were able to accurately identify them due to their extraordinary size.

To confirm that the two candidates are indeed forgiveness you will need Notes by the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope in 2023. Meanwhile, Kipping and his team continue to gather evidence to support exolunas.