back to article Boffins grudgingly admit they may have found an exomoon

After Twitter-leaks, a trio of exoplanet-hunters have decided to go public with observations they reckoned weren't quite up to broadcast-quality but which is rather significant: the first possible detection of a moon orbiting an exoplanet. It's hard enough to reliably spot exoplanets given that we do so by observing tiny …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Score!

    Boffins and Boffinesses: All the points!

    Flat Earthers, et al: Zip

    1. itzman

      Re: Score!

      Don't be silly. All that is required to make the earth flat is to bend the universe properly.

      1. Hans 1

        Re: Score!

        bend the universe properly.

        Go ahead and show me ...

        1. Uffish

          Re: Score!

          Please don't.

  2. frank ly

    Moons!

    We have moons galore in this solar system so it would hardly be surprising if exoplanets had them. Now to observe them ....

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's no moon.

  4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    That "Bayes factor == 2" is scientist code for "Don't get your hopes up."

    Bayes factor is meant to compare 2 hypotheses to see which is more likely.

    If both are equal then it's 0.5. However wikipedia has a list of 6 possible candidate exo-moons, so this would not be the first possible detection IOW there is some statistical data that can shift the probabilities.

    I guess if its 2 then it's "Somewhat more likely, but by no means certain."

    (Probably) nothing to see here even after the results from Hubble arrive. Move along.

    1. Pen-y-gors

      Re: That "Bayes factor == 2" is scientist code for "Don't get your hopes up."

      wikipedia has a list of 6 possible candidate exo-moons

      Quite possibly. But in terms of peer-reviewed research I'd go for the paper in Ap.J. every time.

    2. Simon Harris

      Re: candidate moons.

      "wikipedia has a list of 6 possible candidate exo-moons"

      Just get them to send in their CVs and we'll arrange a time for an interview.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    tiny flickerings in a star

    Just to point out that the "tiny flickerings in a star", when detecting exoplanets, only occur when the orbital plane of the distant system is aligned with Earth and the exoplanet transits its star

    For systems where the orbital plane is not aligned with Earth we detect exoplanets by observing the 'wobble' of the star due to it [the star] orbiting around an offset barycentre, the offset being caused by the presence of the exoplanet.

    1. DropBear
      Boffin

      Re: tiny flickerings in a star

      I might be wrong, but that's not my understanding of how it works. Yes, detecting a "wobble" on the star is one of the methods used, but not as one might imagine it - as "seeing the star literally wobble around" in the sky (which displacement would presumably be ludicrously small), but by detecting tiny Doppler shifts in its spectrum as it alternately moves towards / away from us. That, however, implies we're still in the same plane the wobble is happening in...

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: tiny flickerings in a star

        @DropBear: No, you're not wrong, but Doppler measurements can still work when the plane of the ecliptic of the target system isn't closely aligned with us, when we can't see transits. The greater the misalignment, the less effective Doppler becomes though.

  6. James 51

    Just hope that if it turns out there are no exo-moons here that they don't lose their jobs like the unfortunate incident of the Italian FTL neutrinos.

    1. xeroks

      Did someone lose their job over that? got a link?

      1. James 51

        http://www.nature.com/news/embattled-neutrino-project-leaders-step-down-1.10371

        http://www.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/03/leaders-of-faster-than-light-exp.html

        https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21656-leaders-of-controversial-neutrino-experiment-step-down/

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