SETI Live: Spotted! A Distant Alien Moon Being Born

For the first time, astronomers observed a “disc” around an exoplanet, a large circular mass that can potentially form moons. The exoplanet, officially called the PDS 70c, is one of two massive planets that look similar to Jupiter, in orbit around a young sun-like star located approximately 400 light-years away from Earth.

Using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), researchers detected a circumplanetary disk, a ring-shaped area surrounding a planet, where moons and other satellites may form. The study of this system will offer a deeper understanding of the formation of planets and moons. 

To discuss this game-changing discovery, we invited Myriam Benisty, a researcher at the University of Grenoble, France, and at the University of Chile and the lead author of the article.  Joining her is Stefano Facchini, astronomer at the European Southern Observatory, and Richard Teague, researcher at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. Moderated by Senior Astronomer Franck Marchis, this SETI Live will explain the technique used to make this important discovery and a short analysis of the finding. There will be an opportunity to ask questions to the researchers to truly understand why this is an important new step in the study of exoplanets and the search for life in our universe.

Press releases:

• https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2111/?lang
• https://pweb.cfa.harvard.edu/news/spotted-exoplanet-potential-form-moons

Research Paper:

• https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso2111/eso2111a.pdf

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