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In the last few decades, astronomers have slowly but surely added to the number of known exoplanets. Fifty-fifty the largest planets can be difficult to spot, though, and moons are fifty-fifty smaller. Well, ordinarily. A squad working with information from the dearly departed Kepler infinite telescope has reported a possible moon orbiting an exoplanet some 5,000 light years away. Information technology falls somewhere between the size of Earth and that of the gas giant Neptune. If confirmed, information technology could be the first known exomoon.

Currently, astronomers accept confirmed the existence of near 5,000 exoplanets, just we don't have any confirmed exomoons on the books. There are a dozen or so candidates, including one identified by the same team in 2018. That one hasn't been verified yet, and it's the same case hither. Kepler (see below) stopped operating several years ago, just information technology collected and so much data that scientists are yet dissecting information technology. In that location could exist thousands of exoplanets and fifty-fifty more moons hiding in the archive.

The potential moon is in a star system known every bit Kepler-1708. The planet (Kepler-1708 b) is believed to exist about the size of Jupiter, so it'south not unthinkable that it could have a very large moon orbiting it. The candidate moon has been dubbed Kepler-1708 b-i. At the lower end of the size range, Kepler-1708 b-i could be but a little larger than Earth. At the upper end, it could be virtually equally big every bit Neptune. That means nosotros tin can only guess at its composition, but a rocky moon could exist habitable.

Like all Kepler observations, the possible discovery of Kepler-1708 b-i relied on solar transits. When Kepler-1708 b passes in front of its star, the luminance dips slightly. Kepler worked by recording the brightness of vast starfields over long periods of fourth dimension. By watching for repeated dips, astronomers can find exoplanets that are invisible to traditional telescopes. The same goes for exomoons—nosotros think. The signals from moons around those planets is much more subtle, which is why we take withal to confirm whatsoever of them exist.

The team notes in the periodical Nature Astronomy that there's a i percent take a chance the detection of Kepler-1708 b-i could be a mistake. That might sound close enough to the residual of us, just that's not skillful plenty for science. While NASA'southward Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) tin't run across this far away, the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope might have enough ability to spot objects similar Kepler-1708 b-i. It will be a few more than months before we know that Webb is working correctly, but the launch and deployment went off without a hitch.

Now Read:

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