Possible giant moon around a planet outside of our solar system
Possible giant moon around a planet outside of our solar system
Thanks to observations made with NASA's Hubble and Kepler space telescopes, astronomers have found indications of what will be, if confirmed, the first discovery of a moon orbiting a planet outside our solar system.
This candidate for the moon, which is 8,000 light-years from Earth, orbits a giant gas planet that, in turn, revolves around a star called Kepler-1625.
Since the moons outside our solar system (called "exolunas") can not be directly visualized, their presence is inferred when they pass in front of a star, temporarily diminishing their light. Such an event is called transit, and has been used to detect many of the exoplanets cataloged to date.
However, the exolunas are more difficult to detect than the exoplanets because they are smaller than their companion planet, and therefore their transit signal is weaker in the light curve that measures the duration of the planet's passage before its star and the degree of temporary decrease in light. The exolunas also vary their position with each transit because they orbit the planet.
In their search for exolunas, Alex Teachey and David Kipping, astronomers at Columbia University in the US city of New York, analyzed data from 284 planets discovered by the Kepler that move in orbits of more than 30 days around their respective stars . The researchers found on the planet Kepler-1625b a case of a traffic signal with intriguing anomalies, suggesting the presence of a moon.
Illustration showing the candidate for exoluna 1625b-i, the planet around which it revolves and the star orbited by both stars. (Image: NASA / ESA / L. Hustak)
Based on what they discovered, the team spent 40 hours observing with Hubble to study the planet intensively, obtaining more accurate data on light reductions. Scientists monitored the planet before and during its 19-hour transit in front of the star. After the end of the transit, the Hubble detected a second and much smaller reduction in the brightness of the star. That tiny decrease fits with what can be expected from the presence of a satellite.
In addition to this reduction in light, Hubble provided additional evidence for the moon's hypothesis, finding that the transit of the planet happened more than an hour earlier than predicted. This agrees with the existence of a planet and a moon orbiting around a common center of gravity that would cause the planet to wobble away from its calculated location, much like the Earth wobbles while our Moon orbits .
The candidate moon, which has been given the name Kepler-1625b-i, is unusual because of its large size. It is comparable in diameter to the planet Neptune. There is no satellite in our solar system that even remotely approaches this size.
Like its moon, Kepler-1625b is also larger than the largest of its counterparts in our solar system. The exoplanet is a gas giant, with a mass several times greater than that of Jupiter.
Kepler-1625b revolves around its star at a distance similar to that between the Sun and the Earth. The characteristics of the star and that distance to it make that Kepler-1625b and its apparent moon are on the inner edge of the habitable zone of that solar system. Habitable zone is called the orbital strip around a star where the heat received from it allows the existence of liquid water on the surface of the possible stars located there.
However, it is considered that both bodies are gaseous and that due to this they are not suitable for life, at least as we know it.
.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',
'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
fbq('init', '369524843414444');
fbq('track', 'PageView');
.
SOURCE LINK ERESVIRAL.COM https://www.beviral.online
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario