Related papers: Limits on the Orbits and Masses of Moons around Cu…

Exoplanet discoveries have motivated numerous efforts to find unseen populations of exomoons, yet they have been unsuccessful. A plausible explanation is that most discovered planets are located on close-in orbits, which would make their…

Two decades ago, astronomers began detecting planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, so-called exoplanets. Since that time, the rate of detections and the sensitivity to ever-smaller planets has improved dramatically with several…

Since the discovery of a planet transiting its host star in the year 2000, thousands of additional exoplanets and exoplanet candidates have been detected, mostly by NASA's Kepler space telescope. Some of them are almost as small as the…

We examined which exo-systems contain moons that may be detected in transit. We numerically modeled transit light curves of Earth-like and giant planets that cointain moons with 0.005--0.4 Earth-mass. The orbital parameters were randomly…

We investigate the long-term dynamical stability of hypothetical moons orbiting extrasolar giant planets. Stellar tides brake a planet's rotation and, together with tidal migration, act to remove satellites; this process limits the…

Since the discovery of the first exoplanets, those most adequate for life to begin and evolve have been sought. Due to observational bias, however, most of the discovered planets so far are gas giants, precluding their habitability.…

Satellite formation is a natural by-product of planet formation. With the discovery of nu- merous extrasolar planets, it is likely that moons of extrasolar planets (exomoons) will soon be discovered. Some of the most promising techniques…

The diversity and quantity of moons in the Solar System suggest a manifold population of natural satellites exist around extrasolar planets. Of peculiar interest from an astrobiological perspective, the number of sizable moons in the…

Confirmation of the first exomoon remains elusive. Although several exomoon candidates exist around single stars, there are currently no candidates around circumbinary planets (CBPs). Most circumbinary planets are thought to form far from…

In the search for moons around extrasolar planets, astronomers are confronted with a stunning observation. Although 3400 of the 4500 exoplanets were discovered with the transit method and although there are well over 25 times as many moons…

M dwarfs host most of the exoplanets in the local Milky Way. Some of these planets, ranging from sub-Earths to super-Jupiters, orbit in their stars' habitable zones (HZs), although many likely possess surface environments that preclude…

Detections of massive extrasolar moons are shown feasible with the Kepler space telescope. Kepler's findings of about 50 exoplanets in the stellar habitable zone naturally make us wonder about the habitability of their hypothetical moons.…

Nearby giant exoplanets offer an opportunity to search for moons (exomoons) orbiting them. Here, we present a simulation framework for investigating the possibilities of detecting exomoons via their astrometric signal in planet-to-star…

We survey the methods proposed in the literature for detecting moons of extrasolar planets in terms of their ability to distinguish between prograde and retrograde moon orbits, an important tracer of moon formation channel. We find that…

All-sky imaging surveys have identified several dozen isolated planetary-mass objects (IPMOs), far away from any star. Here, we examine the prospects for detecting transiting moons around these objects. We expect transiting moons to be…

Moons orbiting extrasolar planets are the next class of object to be observed and characterized for possible habitability. Like the host-planets to their host-star, exomoons have a limiting radius at which they may be gravitationally bound,…

We examine the effects that planetary encounters have on the moon systems of ejected gas giant planets. We conduct a suite of numerical simulations of planetary systems containing three Jupiter-mass planets (with the innermost planet at 3…

The search for life outside of the Solar System should not be restricted to exclusively planetary bodies; large moons of extrasolar planets may also be common habitable environments throughout the Galaxy. Extrasolar moons, or exomoons, may…

Satellites of extrasolar planets, or exomoons, are on the frontier of detectability using current technologies and theoretical constraints should be considered in their search. In this Letter, we apply theoretical constraints of orbital…

We investigate the habitability of hypothethical moons orbiting known exoplanets. This study focuses on big, rocky exomoons that are capable of maintaining a significant atmosphere. To determine their habitability, we calculate the incident…