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Hubble boosts evidence for first exomoon

Kepler-1625b and moon transiting star
An artist’s impression shows the Jupiter-sized exoplanet Kepler-1625b transiting its parent star with the Neptune-sized candidate exomoon in tow. (Dan Durda Illustration)

With a lot of help from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers now feel confident enough to publish their evidence for the first moon detected in orbit around a planet beyond our solar system.

But they’re still not completely confident.

“At this point, it’s up to us to report what we’re seeing, hand it over to the community and let the community probe it,” said Columbia University astronomer Alex Teachey, one of the authors of a study about the find published in the open-access journal Science Advances. “If they see what we see, I expect some people will be convinced and other people will be skeptical. And that’s all part of the process.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

By Alan Boyle

Mastermind of Cosmic Log, contributor to GeekWire and Universe Today, author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference," past president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

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