Exomoon Archives - Page 6 of 8 - Astrobiology

Exomoon Kepler-1625b I orbiting exoplanet Kepler-1625b (artist concept) -- Wikipedia

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Giant Doubts About Giant Exomoons

by Keith CowingFebruary 6, 2024February 6, 2024

Only two of the more than 5300 known exoplanets have so far provided evidence of moons in orbit around them. In observations of the planets Kepler-1625b and Kepler-1708b from the […]

Schematic view of the mass range in which a fractionally large exomoon can form by an impact. The horizontal axis represents the mantle composition and the vertical axis represents the planetary mass normalized by the Earth mass M⊕. Rocky planets smaller than 6 M⊕ and icy planets smaller than 1 M⊕ are capable of forming fractionally large moons as indicated by the orange shading. Our prediction is consistent with planet–moon systems in the solar system. -- astro-ph.EP

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Impact events, Moon, Status Report

Large Planets May Not Form Fractionally Large Moons

by Keith CowingDecember 27, 2023December 27, 2023

One of the unique aspects of Earth is that it has a fractionally large Moon, which is thought to have formed from a Moon-forming disk generated by a giant impact.

This artist’s impression depicts the exomoon candidate Kepler-1625b-i -- NASA

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Large Exomoons Are Unlikely Around Kepler-1625 b And Kepler-1708 b

by Keith CowingDecember 8, 2023December 8, 2023

There are more than 200 moons in our Solar System, but their relatively small radii make similarly sized extrasolar moons very hard to detect with current instruments.

Artist's depiction of a large exoplanet with an exomoon -- NASA

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

The “Drake equation” Of Exomoons — A Cascade Of Formation, Stability And Detection

by Keith CowingNovember 10, 2023November 10, 2023

After 25 years of the prediction of the possibility of observations, and despite the many hundred of well studied transiting exoplanet systems, we are still waiting for the announcement of […]

Fraction of simulations that lead to an observable moon (warmer than 270K (Section 3)) as a function of its orbital semi-major axis and eccentricity of the moon. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Tidally Heated Exomoons Around ε Eridani b: Observability And Prospects For Characterization

by Keith CowingMay 7, 2023May 7, 2023

Exomoons are expected to orbit gas giant exoplanets just as moons orbit solar system planets. Tidal heating is present in solar system satellites and it can heat up their interior […]

Example two-dimensional projections of the initial positions and orbits of each object in our four-body simulations (including planet e). Panel (a) shows the top-down and edge-on projections of 20 random realizations of the system, with the initial orbits (lines) and positions (points) of planet e shown in orange, and the initial orbits and positions of planet f shown in blue. The black “?” shows the position of the host star, and the dashed black line shows the fixed orbital semi-major axis for planet d. The red boxes indicate the limits of the area plotted in panel (b), which shows a zoomed-in version of the system highlighting the initial position and orbit of the satellite, “s,” (red) orbiting planet f. The 20 system realizations shown here represent the initial conditions at a single grid cell in Figure 3, used to determine the fractional stability for a given Pe and ee. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Stability and Detectability of Exomoons Orbiting HIP 41378 f, a Temperate Jovian Planet with an Anomalously Low Apparent Density

by Keith CowingMarch 27, 2023March 27, 2023

Moons orbiting exoplanets (“exomoons”) may hold clues about planet formation, migration, and habitability. We investigate the plausibility of exomoons orbiting the temperate (Teq=294 K) giant (R=9.2 R⊕) planet HIP 41378 […]

Artist's view of a liquid water exomond created by the authors using Midjourney.

Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Habitable Moons Orbiting Free-Flying Planets

by Keith CowingMarch 21, 2023March 21, 2023

Liquid water is one of the most important conditions for the emergence of life as we know it on earth. Researchers from the ORIGINS cluster from the fields of astrophysics, […]

Exomoon detection limits around HR 7672

Astronomy & Telescopes, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Detecting Exomoons From Radial Velocity Measurements Of Self-luminous Planets: Application To Observations Of HR 7672 B And Future Prospects

by Keith CowingFebruary 26, 2023February 26, 2023

The detection of satellites around extrasolar planets, so called exomoons, remains a largely unexplored territory.

Four examples of microlensing light curves

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Microlensing Due To Free-Floating Moon-Planet Systems

by Keith CowingFebruary 26, 2023February 26, 2023

Gravitational microlensing is a powerful method for detecting and characterizing free-floating planetary-mass objects (FFPs).

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

Tidal Heating of Exomoons In Resonance and Implications For Detection

by Keith CowingJune 23, 2022

The habitability of exoplanets can be strongly influenced by the presence of an exomoon, and in some cases the exomoon itself could be a possible place for life to develop. […]