We may have discovered a moon outside our solar system, four times larger than Earth!
- Last year the first external satellite was screened in the data of the telescope «Kepler-Kepler».
This prompted scientists to follow up with the Hubble Space Telescope and then made more forceful observations to detect the first outer moon.
"This will be the first case of a moon outside our solar system," Kiping said.
If Hubble's observations are confirmed, the result could provide vital evidence about the evolution of planetary systems and could lead to a rethinking of the theories about how planets form planets around the planets.
The moon is named Kepler-1625b-i and orbits a planet called Kepler-1625b. The latter revolves around a yellow star resembling the sun (Kepler-1625).
The whole system is located about 8,000 light-years away, a distance that was recently revised with the help of Gain data.
The planet (Kepler-1625b) is a Jupiter-sized gas giant, just over 11 times the diameter of the Earth, but given that its mass is much larger than the Jupiter.
The candidate moon is also huge; according to astronomers, it is about the size of Neptune, and it is also a gas object orbiting its constellation at a distance of about 3 million kilometers.
Astronomers first got the Kepler-1625b-i signal when they studied data from Kepler's telescope on 284 outer planets in search of orbiting satellites; what they call "small deviations and oscillations" in the light graph of the star due to the It is relatively light as a result of the planet's opposition and its moon to the path of light, but it was not enough information.
Kepler recorded only three times a crossing of the planet in front of his star, which is largely because the planet takes about a year to complete its orbit.
It was three times puzzling, but not conclusive. Since Kepler can not monitor the same domain for a long time, so we asked for some help from Hubble to follow the monitoring.
Kiping told a news conference that the analysis of the new light curve revealed two major anomalies.
The first is that the planet passes by an hour and a quarter of a hour from the typical situation, indicating that there is something that attracts the planet and accelerates its movement. The second anomaly is an additional decrease in star brightness after the planetary transit is complete.
Unfortunately, the demand for Hubble's use of research has increased, which means that the time spent by Titchi and Kiping with the telescope was limited to 40 hours. This time runs out before the full passage of the moon is measured.
These observations increase evidence of the presence of Kepler-1625b-i and are not yet critical.
Other explanations of the signals observed by Titchi and Kiping could be a second planet orbiting the star. Although they observed that Kepler did not find any evidence of a second planet yet.
Another possible explanation is that one or more of the signals they observed was noise from the star itself.
But as the team confirmed from Kepler's data, the star was so calm that it was not even possible to detect the rotation. So it is possible to have an astral noise, but Titchi and Kiping found no evidence of that.
Naturally, the excitement about the possibility of discovering something new, which is the first of its kind and which we hope will promise a lot in the future, will start.
Kiping said: "If this is true, the planet will be about the size of the Jupiter. It is a Neptune-sized moon, and it would be a wonderful system with unpredictable characteristics in many ways," the unexpected discovery of "hot Jupiters" or "roaster planets" In the early days of planetary hunting, this will certainly raise some questions about moon formation.
Kepler-1625b-i is about 1.5% of the planet's mass, similar to the mass of Earth and Moon. Because both germs are invasive, they are not as viable as we understand them, if you are wondering.
As for the size of the moon, it raises questions about how he got there.
Our moon may be the result of a collision with Earth, but a collision with a gas planet (Kepler-1625b) may not produce sufficient material to form a Neptune-sized moon.
Jupiter is thought to have been formed from a ring of surrounding material, but again, none of Jupiter's satellites are the size of Neptune. Or can be an object captured by the attraction of the planet from another place.
At the moment, we can not get any answers to these questions, but we can at least confirm the discovery of the moon, and hope that it will be done in the future through Telescope Hubble and «James Webb - James Webb».
"We look forward to checking the scientific community for this work and hope to have the opportunity to observe the target again before it takes too long," said Tichi.
Source
sci
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