Signal may be from first 'exomoon' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website
27 July 2017
From the section Science & Environment

A team of astronomers has potentially discovered the first known moon beyond the Solar System.
If confirmed, the "exomoon" is likely to be about the size and mass of Neptune, and circles a planet the size of Jupiter but with 10 times the mass.
The signal was detected by Nasa's Kepler Space Telescope; astronomers now plan to carry out follow-up observations with Hubble in October.
A paper about the candidate moon is published on the Arxiv pre-print site.
To date, astronomers have discovered more than 3,000 exoplanets - worlds orbiting stars other than the Sun.
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more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40741545

[DetlefK]

1. Obligatory "That's no moon." joke.

[shenmue]

2. Moon people!!

[C_U_L8R]

3. Take our leader, please.

[Victor_c3]

4. I'm by no means literate in astronomy or its associated science

But couldn't a moon the size of Neptune have its own moons orbiting it?

There sure is a whole hell of a lot of places for possible life in our local part of the galaxy...

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Can moons have moons? (Intermediate)

Yes, in theory, moons can have moons. The region of space around a satellite where a sub-satellite can exist is called the Hill sphere. Outside the Hill sphere, a sub-satellite would be lost from its orbit about the satellite. ...

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/44-our-solar-system/the-moon/general-questions/104-can-moons-have-moons-intermediate

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I think we'll need a new word for, what, second-order moons or whatever.

Maybe "Mooons"

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Something more prosaic: subsatellite

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsatellite

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Ah.

Well, I guess "moonmoons" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, either.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. But it would make for more interesting bar conversation ...

... particularly after it got a few syllables deep.