Planetary Science Institute | 2017 Feb 14
[img3="Simulation of Giant Impact Formation of ExomoonNASA’s Kepler observatory should be able to detect planetary moons – yet to be discovered – formed by far-away planetary collisions outside our Solar System, research by Amy Barr of the Planetary Science Institute shows.
© Amy C. Barr, Megan Bruck Syal, MNRAS, 2017"]http://www.psi.edu/sites/default/files/ ... 20copy.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
The Kepler spacecraft has discovered thousands of exoplanets, but has not yet detected definitive signs of moons – exomoons – orbiting them.
A pair of papers authored by Barr describes how exomoons large enough to be detected by Kepler could form. Barr’s paper, “Formation of Massive Rocky Exomoons by Giant Impact” appearing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, looks at the formation of moons via giant impacts around rocky extrasolar planets. ...
A second paper, “Formation of Exomoons: A Solar System Perspective” appearing in Astronomical Review, describes how large exomoons could form by co-accretion around growing gas giant planets, or by processes that did not operate in our Solar System. ...
Formation of Massive Rocky Exomoons by Giant Impact - Amy C. Barr, Megan Bruck Syal
- Monthly Notices of the RAS 466(4):4868 (May 2017) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx078
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1701.02705 > 10 Jan 2017
- Astronomical Review (online 23 Jan 2017) DOI: 10.1080/21672857.2017.1279469
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1701.02125 > 09 Jan 2017