Author: Science News Staff / Source: Science News
A sighting by the Hubble Space Telescope provides more evidence that there’s a Neptune-sized moon, dubbed Neptmoon, orbiting the exoplanet Kepler 1625b, Lisa Grossman reported in “Hubble may have spotted the first known exomoon” (SN: 10/27/18, p. 14).
“If Neptmoon actually exists, could it possibly have moons of its own?
” online reader MAdScientist72 asked. “And what would we call a moon of a moon?”It’s certainly possible that Neptmoon could host a moon of its own, Grossman says. “It would probably be called a moonmoon, submoon or, my favorite, an exomoonmoon,” she says. Those are hypothetical names — scientists have not yet spotted such a satellite. For Neptmoon to have an exomoonmoon, the object would have to be close enough to be captured by Neptmoon’s gravity, but not so close that it would get torn apart, Grossman says.
At least four moons in our solar system are large enough to play host, astronomers Juna Kollmeier of Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif., and Sean Raymond of the University of Bordeaux in France reported online October 8 at arXiv.org. Saturn’s moons Titan and Iapetus, Jupiter’s moon Callisto and Earth’s moon could theoretically host moonmoons.
Researchers stumbled upon a new species of coral reef fish (below) sporting highlighter hues, Helen Thompson reported in “This new fish species displays a splash of highlighter hues” (SN: 10/27/18, p. 5).
Readers on Twitter thought the fish belonged to a more colorful era. “It obviously evolved during the 1980s,” @BeTheShovel wrote. “Unreal! I was thinking more like the ’60s #psychedelic,” replied @stormkittykat.
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