If you watched my earlier post on Cool Worlds Lab’s missed opportunity on an exomoon proposal with the James Webb Space Telescope, then you will enjoy this updated video where Assistant Professor of Astronomy David Kipping provides five reasons that the study of exomoons is so important.
I do not want to give too much away, but one of the reasons is that the search for life on exoplanets needs to consider not only the chemical composition of the exoplanet, but the orbiting exmoon as well. If we assume everything we are seeing in the light from the observed exoplanet comes from only the exoplanet, we may experience a number of false positives because the life-affirming chemicals may not be combined in one object but instead come from two dead objects that only appear as one.
This makes sense, but it also throws a wrench into things. If we are struggling to build telescopes large enough to truly understand an exoplanet’s composition, we are now much farther away from a useful telescope because of the impact of exomoons. Of course, this is not the fault of the exomoons, but rather a reality that must be added to the equation.
Check out the video as Dr. Kipping makes his argument. It is pretty convincing.
Our Awesome Universe 