Kepler 1625b I, a possible moon of

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

Kepler-1625b, may be the first exomoon ever discovered (pending confirmation), and was first indicated after preliminary observations by the Kepler Space Telescope. A more thorough observing campaign by the Hubble Space Telescope took place in October 2017, ultimately leading to a discovery paper published in '' Science Advances'' in early October 2018. Studies related to the discovery of this moon suggest that the host exoplanet is up to several Jupiter masses in size, and the moon is thought to be approximately the mass of

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

. Like several moons in the Solar System, the large exomoon would theoretically be able to host its own moon, called a

subsatellite A subsatellite, also known as a submoon, or moonmoon, is a "moon of a moon" or a hypothetical natural satellite that orbits the moon of a planet. It is inferred from the empirical study of natural satellites in the Solar System that subsatellites ...

, in a stable orbit, although no evidence for such a subsatellite has been found. Kepler-1625b and Bb distances

Studies and observations

The original paper presented two independent lines of evidence for the exomoon, a transit timing variation indicating a Neptune-mass moon, and a photometric dip indicating a Neptune-radius moon. An independent re-analysis of the observations published in February 2019 recovered both but suggested that an inclined and hidden hot-Jupiter could also be responsible, which could be tested with future Doppler spectroscopy radial velocity observations. A third study analyzing this data set recovered the transit timing variation signature but not the photometric dip, and thus questioned the exomoon hypothesis. The original discovery team later addressed this paper, finding that their re-reduction exhibits higher systematics that may explain their differing conclusions.

References

{{portal bar, Astronomy, Space Exomoons

Studies and observations

See also

References