Astronomers spot exomoon candidate that's almost as massive as Jupiter
Object orbits a brown dwarf, which circles another star, confusing the cosmic taxonomy
Scientists may have found the first moon outside our Solar System – depending on what astronomers ultimately decide counts as one.
Either way, the groundbreaking research, published in Nature this week, promises a path to clearer sightings of so-called exomoons.
Kevin Hoy, a PhD student affiliated with Universidad Diego Portales and the European Southern Observatory in Chile, has found an object orbiting a brown dwarf, which in turn orbits a host star, which sits about 73 light-years from the Sun in the southern celestial hemisphere.
Brown dwarfs present a problem for astronomers. They fill the gap between gas giant planets – like Jupiter or Saturn – and the smallest stars. They are not massive enough to sustain the hydrogen fusion that powers the Sun and other main-sequence stars, although they can fuse deuterium, a heavier isotope...
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