Scientists Think Kepler Could Locate Habitable Exomoons

摘要

NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope, which astronomers hope will find Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, might also find habitable moons in other solar systems, new research suggests.rnKepler's primary mission is to monitor thousands of stars looking for characteristic dips in their brightness as orbiting planets pass in front of them in so-called transit events.rnThe orbiting observatory, launched in March aboard a Delta 2 rocket, detected the giant extrasolar planet HAT-P-Vb within its first 10 days of taking data. The planet had previously been discovered by ground-based telescopes, but the observations showed Kepler works as expected.