The habitable zone (HZ) is defined as the region around a star where a planet can support liquid water on its surface, which, together with an oxygen atmosphere, is presumed […]
Exomoon
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets
Detecting extrasolar moons akin to Solar System satellites with an Orbital Sampling Effect
Despite years of high accuracy observations, none of the available theoretical techniques has yet allowed the confirmation of a moon beyond the Solar System. Methods are currently limited to masses […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones
The Habitability of Exomoons
When we think of where else life might exist in the universe, we tend to focus on planets. But on a grander cosmic scale, moons could prove the more common […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones
Runaway Greenhouse Effect on Exomoons Due to Irradiation From Hot, Young Giant Planets
The Kepler space telescope has detected transits of objects as small as the Earth’s Moon, and moons as small as 0.2 Earth masses can be detected in the Kepler data […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Magnetic Shielding of Exomoons Beyond the Circumplanetary Habitable Edge
With most planets and planetary candidates detected in the stellar habitable zone being super-Earths and gas giants, rather than Earth-like planets, we naturally wonder if their moons could be habitable. […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Detection of Exomoons Through Their Modulation of Exoplanetary Radio Emissions
In the Jupiter-Io system, the moon’s motion produces currents along the field lines that connect the moon to the Jupiter’s polar regions, where the radio emission is modulated by the […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Status Report
The First Search for an Exomoon around a Habitable-Zone Planet
Kepler-22b is the first transiting planet to have been detected in the habitable-zone of its host star. At 2.4 Earth radii, Kepler-22b is too large to be considered an Earth-analog, […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
NASA Hosts Media Briefing to Discuss Kepler Planetary Discovery
NASA will host a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT, Thursday, April 18, to announce new discoveries from the agency’s Kepler mission. The briefing will be held in the Syvertson […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
The Detectability of Habitable Exomoons with Kepler
In this paper, the detectability of habitable exomoons orbiting around giant planets in M-dwarf systems using Transit Timing Variations (TTVs) and Transit Timing Durations (TDVs) with Kepler-class photometry is investigated. […]