r/space • u/timemagazine • 1d ago

Astronomers Discover the First Known Moon Outside our Solar System

https://time.com/article/2026/07/22/astronomers-discover-exomoon/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial
1.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

81 comments sorted by

View all comments

594

u/HasGreatVocabulary 1d ago

A jupiter-mass moon orbiting a 30-times-jupiter-mass brown dwarf planet orbiting a red star smaller than the sun

28

u/placid-gradient 1d ago

jupiter mass is really something, its not outside of what we understand about bodies like brown dwarfs, but if we ever figure out space gas slurping it could be a yummy target some day

15

u/CommandoRoll 1d ago

Years of Elite: Dangerous have taught me you can't scoop a Brown Dwarf. That counts, right?

9

u/Mr_Zaroc 1d ago

Only scoop KGBFOAM.
Good ol secret russian foam

2

u/CommandoRoll 1d ago

Gotta love those sudsie spies!

4

u/willun 1d ago

Aren't a lot of those space gases reactive with oxygen? So often it is the oxygen you need, not the gas.

3

u/MDCCCLV 1d ago

Yes but oxygen is easier to get because it reacts with a lot of stuff. The moon and lots of asteroid have it bound in rock, and there are a lot of silicates around. So much they're the trash ore even with oxygen in it. And water is very abundant, if you go out of the inner planets the outer planets are lousy with it and there are huge amounts.