Astronomers Discover a Volcanic Moon Hundreds of Light-Years Away
Jupiter’s moon Io might be the most volcanic place in our entire Solar System, but recently astronomers detected a world that just might put it to shame. Exoplanet WASP-49b resides 635 light-years away, however a recent investigation was able to detect a massive cloud of sodium nearby.
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00:00Jupiter's moon Io might be the most volcanic place in our entire solar system, but recently
00:08astronomers detected another world that just might put it to shame.
00:13Exoplanet WASP-49b resides 635 light years away, however a recent investigation was able
00:19to detect a massive cloud of sodium nearby it.
00:22This is generally a marker of intense volcanic activity, but it couldn't be coming from
00:26that planet, as it's a gas giant, meaning experts have detected a massively volcanic
00:30exomoon in a system hundreds of light years away.
00:33This is a huge discovery, as while astronomers have identified some 5,500 exoplanets, detecting
00:39moons in other systems is a much harder process, and because of that, only two have ever been
00:44identified before.
00:46Volcanism on planetary bodies seems to occur almost exclusively on rocky worlds like Earth.
00:50That's why the gas cloud perplexed scientists for years, as not only is WASP-49b a gas giant,
00:56but also because the sodium was moving in the wrong direction, with astrophysicist Aperva
01:00Oza saying about it,
01:02The cloud is moving in the opposite direction that physics tells us it should be going,
01:05if it were part of the planet's atmosphere.
01:07Further investigation revealed the gas cloud would disappear at periodic intervals, indicating
01:12an orbiting moon around the gas giant exoplanet.