Researchers have detected the first potential "exomoon"
candidate, a moon orbiting an alien planet beyond our solar system
.
This artist's illustration shows a possible view of the exomoon (left)
and a version of the system if it is actually a star and planet.
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This artist's illustration shows a possible view of the exomoon (left)
and a version of the system if it is actually a star and planet.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
5 comments:
I didn't think that this was a spectacular article. I didn't bring that much out of it. Something that was very confusing to me was that they were calling it an "exomoon," which I didn't understand the meaning of. It turns out that an exomoon is something that orbits an extrasolar body (usually gas giants, when planets). Now I understand better, and I think it's pretty cool that this could possibly be the first ever found. However, I do not feel like they know for certain whether they have found an exomoon or a star. They seem pretty certain, however, that they have found a huge planet that is somehow using or being used by the star or exomoon. The scientists also don't seem to know for certain how big the planet is either. One time they say that it could be 18 times the size of Earth, another, the size of Jupiter. Jupiter is about 11 times as large as Earth as far as circumfrence goes, about 1,321 times in volume, and has over 317 times the mass of Earth. Obviously, they should probably study closer. I'm not exactly sure how far away we are from that extrasolar planet, though. It seems pretty far because they say "detect" like it is a faint trace. I thought it was really interesting how they talked about the gravitational microlensing and how the gravitational field bends. Though it is cool to think that we could be discovering amazing new ways in which the solar system works, it does seem more likely according to things we have seen so far that we have not. I hope that we can find a confirmable exomoon someday, but in the meanwhile, I think that the scientists should have either confirmed the exomoon or dropped it altogether. Anyway, I think this article was good because it introduced new ideas to me.
This was an interesting read. It was interesting that this was the first time a moon was found orbiting an alien planet. I thought the technique of gravitational microlensing was very cool. I hope they find more moons in the future and I definitely hope they will find a planet capable of supporting life.
I found this an interesting article to read. It was amazing that this was the first "thing" (exomoon) orbiting an alien planet. However, they are still not exactly sure whether they found an exomoon or not. But I did find the gravitational microlensing technique very intersting. I looked a little more into it and I found that it actually bends light and the gravitational field of a background object to magnify that object. This is actually used with the Hubble Telescope. I agree with Angela, that this article didn't explain much but now I understand it better after looking up exomoon and gravitational microlensing. I really hope that it is an exomoon not a star because that would have been very exciting. I would like to find out more about this topic.
I didn't quite understand how they were able to cite those who weren't involved in the study. Specifically this quote from chief scientist Wes Traub: " 'The researchers' models point to the moon solution, but if you simply look at what scenario is more likely in nature, the star solution wins,' added Traub, who was not involved in the study." As, even if they aren't truly a part of the individual study, they still are providing their opinion about the scenario, which has evidently been published in the article, making them part of the concept. Again, I can see where they are coming from, and yes this comment isn't focusing generally on the article, yet I just wanted to point that out.
Thought his article had some interesting facts, there weren't many of them. Also, if it weren't for the moon circling it, these studies have been done so many times, that it's hard to believe that there will actually be something new.
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