JWST hunts for an 'Earth-moon' twin in a habitable zone, but the star has other plans
The moon has played a huge role in the development of Earth. It stabilizes the planet, tempers dramatic climate swings, and possibly even provides the tidal heating that might have led to the first life forms. So it's natural we would want to find a similar Earth/Luna system somewhere else in the co...
Image: Phys.org
The moon has played a huge role in the development of Earth. It stabilizes the planet, tempers dramatic climate swings, and possibly even provides the tidal heating that might have led to the first life forms. So it's natural we would want to find a similar Earth/Luna system somewhere else in the cosmos. But astronomers have been searching for one for years at this point to no avail. And a new paper, available on the arXiv preprint server, from Emily Pass and her colleagues at MIT, Harvard, and the University of Chicago describes using the James Webb Space Telescope to track some of the most promising exomoon candidates—only to be foiled by the star they were orbiting.
Originally published at Phys.org
