SCIENCE LAB SPECIAL : NOXIOUS CLOUD MOON

 

Satellite Search : Noxious cloud around distant planet suggests the presence of a moon.

Astronomers have identified many planets orbiting distant stars using sophisticated observatories. But there's something they have yet to spot with any certainty : moons around those worlds.

But a recent discovery near a Saturn-sized planet 635 light-years from Earth is one of the potential clues that exomoons orbit exoplanets out there in the Milky Way.

And this possible moon, described by scientists, is putting on an explosive show, blasting out volcanic matter and noxious gasses that drift off into the stellar neighborhood like a serpentine comet's tail.

The possible evidence of an erupting satellite was described in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Astronomers have been observing a planet designated WASP-49 b for years, and the new paper argues that a sodium cloud whizzing around it does come from the planet.

It might be created by a hypervolcanic companion moon spewing 220,000 pounds  [100,000 kilograms ] of the material every second.

The abundance of moons in our own solar system certainly implies that exomoons exist. But because they would be relatively tiny, researchers have been conjuring up ways to detect them indirectly.

Searches in recent years have identified several  promising candidates, and the cloud around  WASP-49 b is the latest strong prospect - a satellite that may resemble Io, the moon of Jupiter that is the most volcanically active world in our solar system.

The sodium cloud around WASP-49 b was detected in 2017.

The planet is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, so it couldn't be the source of the sodium, and computer simulation suggested a volcanic moon. 

[ Robin George Andrews ]