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posted by martyb on Sunday January 20 2019, @07:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-no-moon dept.

The first suspected exomoon may remain hidden for another decade

A good exomoon is hard to find. Proving that the first purported moon around an exoplanet actually exists could take up to a decade, its discoverers say.

"We're running into some difficult problems in terms of confirming the presence of this thing," said astronomer Alex Teachey of Columbia University at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society on January 10.

[...] That uncertainty is partly because the purported moon seems to be about the size of Neptune, much larger than moon formation theories predict. And the researchers can't rule out that the evidence of the moon isn't actually evidence of a second planet. "We're trying to be very careful about not calling this a discovery, that we've got this beyond a shadow of a doubt," Teachey said.

[...] Ground-based telescopes are trying to confirm if the object is a moon or a second planet based on the object's gravitational tugs on the known planet. That's a much slower process than looking for dips in light from exoplanets and exomoons passing in front of their stars, which is what the Hubble and Kepler data reveal, and could take five to 10 years, Teachey says.

Headline News: Object Not Found.

Previously: First Exo-Moon Discovered?
First Known Exomoon May Have Been Detected: Kepler 1625b i
New Evidence Supports Existence of Neptune-Sized Exomoon Orbiting Kepler-1625b


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday January 20 2019, @05:41PM (7 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 20 2019, @05:41PM (#789083) Journal

    It's a problem that we want to have. Just as we went from a handful of known exoplanets to thousands, revealing unknown types of planets, we will eventually go from 0 known exomoons (a handful of candidates) to many confirmations. And we'll get to see new types of moons and planetary systems that were unimaginable (or at least confined to the realm of imagination).

    I am hopeful that there is a Planet Nine (fifth gas giant) in our solar system since it would give us an opportunity to closely study a new batch of moons. For all of the diversity of moons in our solar system, we have none that are as large as Mars, Earth, or Neptune, only one with a dense atmosphere, etc.

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  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:10PM (6 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:10PM (#789155)

    I like to think of Astronomy as humanity peering through the keyhole of a huge warehouse and trying to figure out what it contains.

    Our star and solar system is the only one we can really observe, so we have to base our theories on a sample of one, when there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy.

    I was kind of hoping planet nine turns out to be a massive rocky world, of the super-Easrth type, just because that's a type of planet we know exists, but we don't have one. It could still have lots of moons of course.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:42PM (5 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:42PM (#789173) Journal

      A Planet Nine would have a huge gravitational sphere of influence due to being so far from the Sun. Larger than Jupiter's or Neptune's. Accordingly it could end up having more moons than Jupiter. On the other hand, because it would be further away from the Sun, objects should tend to be more dispersed. So it may have less moons because of that.

      We are missing super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. Obviously, a rocky surface would be a lot more interesting since it would be the closest example of a rocky body larger than Earth, and it could have life in a subsurface ocean that we could eventually reach (vs. a gas giant which probably doesn't have life and would be fatal for humans to explore).

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      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:48PM (1 child)

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:48PM (#789176)

        All good points. Thanks.

        Can we just get on and go find it already?

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 21 2019, @03:04AM (2 children)

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday January 21 2019, @03:04AM (#789374) Journal

        I was thinking of a fun possibility for Planet 9. Suppose it's a double planet? And, that each one was about 3 Earth masses? Might be a bit harder to find that.

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 21 2019, @04:55AM (1 child)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday January 21 2019, @04:55AM (#789402) Journal

          I don't see a large binary planet being split evenly like that. Works for some asteroid pairs, but multiple Earth masses?

          If two binary planet components were separated by a relatively long distance (like up to 1 AU), that could lower their brightness since they wouldn't appear as one object. It could also lower their temperature and the amount of infrared light given off, making them even harder to detect.

          There has been talk of a Mars-sized Planet Ten at the far edge of the Kuiper belt, or other such objects. Those may be easier to find than a hard mode Planet(s) Nine.

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          • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 21 2019, @03:19PM

            by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday January 21 2019, @03:19PM (#789608) Journal

            Well, I think a double planet is very unlikely, but it's still a fun thought.

            One thing about the simulations that show the existence of a Planet 9, is that by the chance of being the outermost of the giant planets, Neptune is awfully important, and the rest don't seem to much matter. But if there is a Mars sized Planet Ten in a 100 AU orbit, could that be more important to the orbital dynamics about Planet 9?