NASA believes it has discovered a gas-spewing moon light-years away

Scientists have never actually seen a moon orbiting a planet other than the planets in this solar system. One exomoon, one per companion extraterrestrialTelescopes are too small and far away to resolve.

But a new one NASA The study may have provided a clue that one is orbiting a planet 635 light-years away from Earth. The inference comes from a vast sodium cloud Space. Either way it produces about 220,000 pounds of sodium per second.

Research suggests that a rocky moon is orbiting an exoplanet WASP-49 bThe size of a saturn A gas giant Found in 2017, Source. It means that the distant world is similar to the moon Jupiter Ayo – A highly volcanic area erupting its own cloud of gases 1,000 times wider than Jupiter.

“The evidence that something other than a planet and a star is creating this cloud is very compelling,” said study co-author Rosalie Lopes. A statement. “Finding an exomoon is very unusual, and because of Io, we know that a volcanic exomoon is possible.”

This isn't the first time astronomers have been skeptical An exomoon was lurking in their data. Exomoon candidates have been discovered in the past, although confirming their existence is very difficult. Scientists like Apoorva Oza, once a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, are interested in finding unconventional ways to figure out what they might represent: moons Throughout the galaxy, life can provide habitable conditions, even without their host planets.

That's why Osa wanted to return to studying WASP-49 b to further investigate the source of its chaotic cloud. Researchers used a ground-based telescope to observe the cloud and exoplanet silhouettes as they passed in front of the host star.

At one point, they noticed that the cloud was moving faster than WASP-49 b and moving away from Earth. They thought that if the cloud had come from an extraterrestrial, they would have seen it move towards Earth. This observation led to the conclusion that the cloud was coming from a separate source Paper Recently released Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Exoplanet WASP-49 b may have an exomoon similar to Jupiter's Io, a highly volcanic world spewing gases into space.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech illustration

“We think this is a very important piece of evidence,” said Osa, a staff scientist at Caltech and lead author. A statement. “The cloud moves in the opposite direction that physics says it should go if it were part of the planet's atmosphere.”

The team's research provided other clues that an exomoon is forming a cloud. Both planet and star are mostly composed of light elements. Hydrogen and HeliumHardly any sodium. Neither is strong enough to take charge of the cloud. The scientists also used the European Southern Observatory A very large telescope Chile to see the cloud hovering above the exoplanet's atmosphere – just like the cloud surrounds Jupiter.

Next the team created computer models to see if an exomoon could be the catalyst for the cloud. Their simulations showed that a moon with an eight-hour orbit around the planet could explain the movement of the cloud – at times it appeared to move in front of the planet and was not bound to any particular region. alien world

Jupiter's moon Io, seen in several scenes above, is the most volcanically active world in our solar system.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

Scientists can't say anything definitive about an exomoon because it's only a candidate. But here's what astronomers know about Io The third largest Jovian moon In 95. Io A very volcanic world In the solar system. Astronomers believe that hundreds of volcanoes spew fountains that reach dozens of miles high.

Jupiter's gravity is pressing AlasAs the Moon moves closer its core loosens as it moves further away. This causes swelling and shrinkage The interior of Io Warming, stimulating Wave volcano.

Scientists must continue to observe this cloud to confirm its behavior, so the team may be far from knowing for sure whether they have evidence of an exomoon. Still, the results are exciting for Osa, who believes that searching for gas clouds – perhaps an order of magnitude larger than their source – could be an indirect method of finding habitable moons in other star systems.