Smaller Than Earth-Sized Exomoon Discovered? 25
astroengine writes "Through the technique of microlensing, a candidate exomoon has been discovered in orbit around a free-floating planet about 1,600 light-years away toward the galactic bulge. The microlensing event, MOA-2011-BLG-262, was detected by the MOA-II telescope at Mt. John University Observatory (MJUO) in New Zealand and it appears to have a mass of approximately half that of Earth. The host planet is around 4 times the mass of Jupiter. Unfortunately there cannot be further studies of his particular exoplanet-exomoon pair (as microlensing events are transient and random), so the astronomers who made the discovery are remaining cautious and point out that although the exoplanet-exomoon model fits the data the best, there's a possibility that the lensing object may have been a more distant star with a massive exoplanet in tow. Microlensing surveys are, however, sensitive to low mass exoplanets orbiting massive free-floating planets, so this is a tantalizing first-detection. The study's pre-print publication has been uploaded to the arXiv."
Zappa (Score:4, Funny)
"... mass of approximately half that of Earth"
How many moon units would that be?
Re:Zappa (Score:5, Funny)
"... mass of approximately half that of Earth"
How many moon units would that be?
Around 40. At least if you can assume the mass reported for Earth and the moon given on wikipedia. A simple division says the earth is 81.2797 "moon units".
Okay. Then how many Franks or Dweezils does that translate to? Like, ohmahgawd!