New Delhi: While space agencies around the world are busy studying the moon and planning various lunar missions and manned probes, another moon beyond our solar system may have just given away its existence!
A team of astronomers have spotted a signal that just might be the first moon detected outside our solar system, and researchers are gearing up to use the Hubble Space Telescope to confirm it.
If the existence of the 'exomoon' is confirmed, the celestial body is likely to be about the size and mass of Neptune, and circles a planet the size of Jupiter but with 10 times the mass, BBC reported.
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope was the one to detect the exomoon signals and follow-up observations are scheduled for October, when the planet is expected to transit its star again, to get a clear observation.
The Kepler Space Telescope finds planets by watching them pass in front of their stars, causing a dip in the stars’ light. The new potential moon was found in the same way – as a moon orbits its planet, it leads to an extra fall in the starlight coming from behind.
“We anticipate that the proposed measurements would be sufficient to confirm the first unambiguous detection of a moon beyond our Solar System,” the team writes in its request for time on the Hubble telescope, as per the New Scientist.
Dr David Kipping, assistant professor of astronomy at Columbia University in New York, says he has spent "most of his adult life" looking for exomoons.
As per the BBC report, for the time being, however, he urged caution, saying: "We would merely describe it at this point as something consistent with a moon, but, who knows, it could be something else."
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