Finding moons beyond our solar system, called exomoons, has always been a daunting task. But a recent debate among astronomers highlights just how challenging this cosmic game of hide-and-seek truly is.
The saga began in 2018 when a team led by David Kipping, an astronomy professor, thought they'd stumbled upon the first exomoon. This celestial body, orbiting a Jupiter-like planet called Kepler-1625b located a whopping 8,000 light-years away, was initially spotted using the Kepler Space Telescope.
However, the discovery quickly sparked a scientific tug-of-war. The evidence, based on subtle variations in Kepler-1625b's brightness, was deemed inconclusive by some. This ignited a heated debate, showcasing the immense difficulty of pinpointing these elusive exomoons.
The Kepler-1625b case remains in limbo, a testament to the ongoing struggle to validate exomoon detections. Nevertheless, the hunt for these cosmic companions continues, fueled by the tantalizing possibility of unlocking secrets about distant planetary systems and potentially even life beyond our solar system.
According to a report by Space.com, though the discoverers of Kepler-1625 b I and Kepler-1708 b I-let's call them "team pro-exomoon"-maintained an open mind regarding the moon's existence and still to this day urge healthy skepticism, it seemed fairy certain that humanity had found its first exomoons after decades of locating only exoplanets.
That was until late 2023, when a separate team of astronomers led by Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research scientist Rene Heller -"team no-exomoon," if you will-cast doubt on both exomoon discoveries in a paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Kipping and colleagues have now fired back, producing a research paper that appears in a preprint version of the paper repository arXiv and defending their exomoon findings.
"I believe that Kepler-1625b and Kepler-1708b are perfectly valid exomoon candidates, and I think we've shown that convincingly," Kipping told Space.com. "So what do I think is really going on, and why didn't they get the moon?"