ExoMoon Discovery - Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Discovery of New Exomoon outside our Solar System     Image Credit: ESA/NASA

Highlights

• Discovery of new exomoon beyond our solar system
• The moon is named as Kepler-1625b
• Unexpected discovery during analizing Kepler Space Telescope Data
• Researchers from Columbia University (Alex Teachy and David Kipping) were the discoverer

   NASA scientists discovered a new moon outside our solar system which is found to be orbiting around a exoplanet. This discovery made possible by the efforts of ESA/NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Kepler Space Telescopes. This moon is about 8000 light years away from us and can be found in the constellation of Cygnus. Researches from Columbia University found that this moon is orbiting a giant gas planet and a star called Kepler-1625. 

   Finding exoplanet is very critical task because we cannot locate any planets using our telescopes. Researchers used to find these planets by using Transit method ( dimming of star light when a planet crosses it). And finding moons around a exoplanet is too critical and difficult task than finding exoplanet. Like minded scientists like Alex Teachey and David Kipping analyzed data from 284-Kepler discovered planets and they found this moon by the variance of light detected by our space telescopes. Moons which are found outside our solar systems are called Exomoons and they named this moon as Kepler-1625b because it orbits around planet Kepler-1625.

   After continuous observation of Kepler-1625 planet for about 19 hours, they noticed some decrease in brightness approximately after 3.5 hours and confirmed the moon orbiting the planet. This discovery will be a key role future exomoons discovery.

   In future exomoons will be searched by using advanced precision instruments mounted onboard NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. It will be used to find moon candidates with much greater detail than Kepler Space Telescope.

Information Credit : NASA

Image Credit : L.Hustak | NASA | ESA

Tags: New Exomoon Discovery | Space Updates | Fornax Space Missions