The second extraterrestrial moon after 2018… It will take some time to select ‘candidates’
[Helena Valenzuela Widerstrom 제공/ 재판매 및 DB 금지]
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Eom Nam-seok = A super moon (satellite) candidate orbiting an exoplanet the size of Jupiter was observed for the second time and reported to the academic community.
It was pointed out that if it is confirmed that it is a real moon, there is a moon that orbits a planet outside the solar system, and it is pointed out that it will confirm that the moon is a part of the planetary system, large or small.
However, it will take some time to confirm, given that the first extraterrestrial moon candidate discovered in 2018 has not yet been nominated.
According to Columbia University in the United States, a research team led by David Kipping, an associate professor of astronomy and ‘Cool Worlds Lab’ at the university, which has been studying exoplanetary systems, is about 5,500 light-years away from Earth. The results of observing a candidate for a large exomoon presumed to orbit b’ were published in the scientific journal ‘Nature Astronomy’.
This candidate for an extraterrestrial moon is 2.6 times larger than Earth’s, and Dr. Kipping’s team found it on the Jupiter-sized exoplanet ‘Kepler 1625 b’ about 8,000 light-years away three years ago and is the first candidate for an extraterrestrial moon, the size of Neptune ‘Kepler 1625 b-i’ It’s about one-third the size.
The two celestial bodies were analyzed to be composed of gas accumulated due to gravity due to their enormous size.
It started out as a planet, but it may have become the moon when it was pulled by a planet the size of Jupiter, and it is believed that it is far enough away from the star to not be attracted to the star.
By analogy with the fact that there are more than 100 moons between Jupiter and Saturn in the solar system, the research team focused on large exoplanets that are far away from the stars when searching for the extrasolar moon.
“If there were other moons around these planets, they would be smaller and harder to spot,” Kiping said.
Like exoplanets, the exoplanet has received high attention because it has the potential to reveal the method and place of the appearance of life in space, but while close to 10,000 candidates for exoplanets have been discovered, only two have been discovered, so it is still an ‘unknown area’. can’t get out of
Planets hundreds or thousands of light-years away from Earth are detected indirectly by capturing the dimming of starlight as they pass in front of the star, but the further away from the star, the more difficult it is to detect. Extrasolar moons orbiting these planets block less starlight, making it more difficult to detect.
Among the exoplanets discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope, the research team selected 70 large gas planets that are more than the Sun-Earth distance from the stars and analyzed them in depth to conclude that Kepler 1708 b had a signal similar to the moon.
The researchers found that there was only a 1% chance that the signal was an artifact other than an extraterrestrial moon.
However, further observations with Hubble and other space telescopes are required to prove this, and the process is predicted to take several years.
There is still a heated debate over the first extraterrestrial moon candidate, but astronomy professor Eric Argol at the University of Washington said that the second extraterrestrial moon candidate was also found to be a real moon, saying, “It may be a change in data caused by noise or stars from observation equipment.” He expressed his doubts about flying.
However, Kiping said the search for an exoplanet was worthwhile, recalling that when the first exoplanet was discovered, which revolutionized our understanding of planetary system formation, there was just as much skepticism as it is today.
eomns@yna.co.kr
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2022/01/14 15:13 Send
