Scientist's may just have found out the first 'exomoon' ! Neptune sized world may be orbiting a gas giant

Scientist's may just have found out the first 'exomoon' ! Neptune sized world may be orbiting a gas giant

Scientists may have found the first exomoon orbiting a planet named kepler 1625 - b. The feat has been achieved by two Columbian University astronomerd Alex Teachey and David Kipping. The Moon has been estimated to be the size of Neptune, orbiting a planet as of the size of Jupiter but much more massive. This discovery is important in terms of our understandings of other worlds outside of our Solar System.

Astronomers believe to be found out the first exomoon or moon orbiting an alien planet, 8,000 light years away. Alex Teachey, an astronomer from the Columbia University at New York along with David Kipping, another Columbia University astronomer have been able to pull up this feat with the help of the Kepler and The Hubble Telescope.

We've tried our best to rule out other possibilities such as spacecraft anomalies, other planets in the system or stellar activity, but we're unable to find any other single hypothesis which can explain all of the data we have," co-author David Kipping, an astronomer at Columbia University in New York, told reporters 

 The news came after an exoplanet hunt namely Kepler - 1625 b, by Teachey and Kipping. According to them the planet Kepler - 1625 b, which is about three times the size of Jupiter, which is most probably a gas giant. The discovery of the exoplanet was made possible by the Kepler Telescope, which accounts to about 70% of the discoveries out of the 3,800 Exoplanets discovered yet. Exoplanets are discovered via Transit Method.

Transit Method : The Transit Method refers to a process in which presence of a distant planetary body is confirmed by minute irregularities in the star's brightness when a planet is on the star's face during its orbit.

During the 19 hour long Transit period of Kepler 1625 - b, additional weird light curves were noticed. Thus both Teachey and Kipping decided to have an another look on the scenario, this time with the Hubble Telescope. They were awarded 40 hours observation time with the iconic telescope. 

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In late of October 2017, they got the chance of another transit of Kepler 1625 - b and to found out two substantial anamolies.

Firstly, the Transit time of the planet this time was one and a quarter hours early than expected, indicative of the fact that there may be something present beside the planet which has an strong gravitational effect on the planet.

Secondly, an additional increase in the light dipness was observed even when the Planetary Transit had already been completed. This scenario concludes to the presence of an secondary body close to the planet Kepler 1625 - b.

A moon orbiting Kepler-1625b is the best explanation, Teachey and Kipping said.

 Size of the moon is estimated to be the size of Neptune, and is 1.5 percent massive to that of the size of Kepler 1625 - b. This speculation is quite important because it poses the probability for the secondary object being a satellite. When we compare the Earth - Moon ratio, The Moon is only 1.2 percent massive to that of The Earth. The candidate exomoon orbits the planet about 1.9 million miles (3 million kilometers) away. But due to its huge size, it will appear twice as big at Kepler's skies that the Moon appears to The Earth. 

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Another theory about the size of the exomoon could be that it is not as big as it appears to. The host star of the Planet Kepler 1625 - b is estimated to be 10 billion years old, which is twice the age of our Sun, so its possible that due to the increased size of the star both the planet and its satellite are showing different pictures and both of them are not as massive.

Whatever it may be, this discovery is epic in terms our knowledge about other worlds outside our solar system. According to Teachey and Kipping, they are still not 100% certain about the second body being an satellite. 

Conclusive evidences are still missing and we would have to wait for some time for the next transit period to occur and then only we can reach to a conclusion - Teachey

The data's are not conclusive enough because the awarded time for observation from the Hubble telescope ended before the secondary body transit was still on the face of the parent star. 

What do you think do other worlds have moons like our Solar System ? Tell us in the comments section !