Scientists Just Found a Moon the Size of Jupiter Orbiting a Failed Star

Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory have detected what might be the first moon ever found outside our solar system. And it’s a big one. The potential exomoon is roughly the size of Jupiter, but instead of orbiting a planet, it circles a brown dwarf in a distant star system called CD-35 2722. Brown dwarfs are sometimes called“failed stars,”because they’re too small to ignite fusion but much larger than planets.

The discovery was made using the Very Large Telescope in Chile and has been published in the journal Nature. Kevin Hoy, the lead author of the study, called the system“super weird”and noted that the configuration creates a three-tiered system: a star, a brown dwarf, and a moon-sized object. If confirmed, it would be the first of its kind ever observed. It’s also forcing scientists to rethink the definition of a moon, because this object is just as big as a planet.

This discovery matters because it opens the door to finding more exomoons. And who knows? Some of those moons might have conditions that could support life. It’s a wild reminder that the universe is full of surprises. What would you call a world that’s too big to be a moon but too small to be a star? Let us know in the comments.