New Exomoon Twice the Size of Earth Revolves Around Jupiter-Sized Exoplanet

Astronomy experts recently discovered a potential exomoon candidate that exists just beyond the solar system's outskirts. According to the report, there is only a slight chance that the observed material outside the boundaries of our neighborhood is an anomaly.

Dawn of Exomoons?

(Photo: HASSAN AMMAR/AFP via Getty Images)
Amman, JORDAN: The planet Venus after being eclipsed by crescent moon 18 June 2007 in the Jordanian capital Amman.

In the history of the astronomical field, at least over 4,000 exoplanets are already charted on their current locations in the vast deep space. The first discovery of an exoplanet was in 1992, conducted by a pair of radio astronomers, Dale Frail and Aleksander Wolszczan.

The pulsar PSR 1257+12 was the first planet to have been detected outside the premises of our system. But even though the confirmation of different planets was anticipated during past studies, many exoplanets have already been named due to modern-day technology. As time passed by, the list of known exoplanets increased gradually.

Due to the capacity of our astronomical instruments, there was one event where NASA was able to find a whopping 700 exoplanets in just a short amount of time. The space agency conducted the analyses between May 2009 and March 2011.

Alongside the existence of exoplanets, there are a lot of cosmic bodies that we are also finding. One example is lunar bodies, which commonly revolve near a parent planet. The presence of moons is seemingly overlooked, but astronomers are listing the detection of many of them.

Today, there are over 200 moons known in just the premises of our solar system. With the staggering number of lunar bodies in our neighborhood, it is safe to say that there are also moons hovering beyond our backyards.

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New Exomoon Bigger than Earth Found Outside Solar System

Columbia University's astronomy expert David Kipping, along with the help of colleagues, presented a new study that details the observation gathered from the Kepler space telescope. NASA launched the instrument back in 2009, and throughout its deployment in space, Kepler captured over 2,000 exoplanets. The space telescope served for nine consecutive years before retiring.

Kipping said in a report by The Register that the abundance of lunar bodies scattered across our solar system is sufficient to theorize the presence of other exomoons near the exoplanets. The study required several mathematical models to collect the data of at least 73 cool giants that potentially keep a number of moons hidden from our sight. One of the major reasons the suspected exoplanets were selected was the frequent eclipse detected thanks to the bright presence of the host star.

Among the most promising exomoons charted by the team was the Kepler-1708 b-i, a lunar body theorized to have a size twice Earth and orbits a gigantic exoplanet comparable to Jupiter.

Although there had been multiple signals that support Kepler-1708 b-i as a true moon, the authors will secure its validity in the future observations to come.

Kepler's ex-workmate Hubble, as well as the newcomer James Webb Space Telescope, will process a series of collaborative observations to get additional sightings and evidence of the moon's transits and activity in hopes of confirming Kepler-1708 b-i as a lunar body. The study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy, titled "An exomoon survey of 70 cool giant exoplanets and the new candidate Kepler-1708 b-i."