After Discovering 6,000 Exoplanets, Researchers May Have Found the First Exomoon
Humans discovered the first exoplanet in 1992 and have since found approximately 6,000 other planets from outside our solar system. Not once have those researchers found a moon orbiting any of those planets, however. That may have changed with the recent discovery of the first moon-like object in another solar system.
The findings were published in a recent study. Kevin Hoy, lead author of the study and PhD student at the Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos, says that this potential moon, known as CD-35 2722 B, orbits a brown dwarf instead of a traditional planet. It’s also approximately 90% the size of Jupiter and bigger than Saturn. This moon-like object takes 170 days to fully orbit its host.
Hoy and other researchers used a fairly old trick to discover this moon: radial velocity analysis, which is used to detect wobbles in stars and is an indication that an exoplanet is...
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