Astronomers discover mysterious cosmic body
Baku, January 26, AZERTAC
Astronomers may have found a moon that is completely different from anything in our solar system.
According to CNN, this is only the second discovered space object, which may be an exomoon or a moon outside our solar system. A giant moon has been discovered orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet called Kepler 1708b, located 5,500 light-years from Earth.
The recently discovered celestial body is 2.6 times the size of the Earth. There is no analogue of such a large moon in our system. For reference: our own Moon is 3.7 times smaller than the Earth, CNN notes.
This is the second time that David Kipping, assistant professor of astronomy and head of the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University, and his team have found a candidate for the right to be called an exomoon. They discovered in 2018 the first Neptune-sized moon orbiting a giant exoplanet called Kepler-1625b.
“To date, astronomers have found more than 10,000 exoplanet candidates, but exomoons are far more complex,” David Kipping said in a statement. “They are terra incognita.”
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