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The habitable zone for Earth-like exomoons orbiting Kepler-1625b

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2019

Duncan H. Forgan Open the ORCID record for Duncan H. Forgan [Opens in a new window]
Duncan H. Forgan*
Affiliation:
Centre for Exoplanet Science, SUPA, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9SS, UK
*
Author for correspondence: Duncan H. Forgan, E-mail:[email protected]
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Abstract

The recent announcement of a Neptune-sized exomoon candidate orbiting the Jupiter-sized object Kepler-1625b has forced us to rethink our assumptions regarding both exomoons and their host exoplanets. In this paper, I describe calculations of the habitable zone for Earth-like exomoons in the orbit of Kepler-1625b under a variety of assumptions. I find that the candidate exomoon, Kepler-1625b-i, does not currently reside within the exomoon habitable zone, but may have done so when Kepler-1625 occupied the main sequence. If it were to possess its own moon (a ‘moon–moon’) that was Earth-like, this could potentially have been a habitable world. If other exomoons orbit Kepler-1625b, then there are a range of possible semi-major axes/eccentricities that would permit a habitable surface during the main sequence phase, while remaining dynamically stable under the perturbations of Kepler-1625b-i. This is however contingent on effective atmospheric CO2 regulation.

Keywords

Exomoonhabitable zoneKepler-1625b
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 18 , Issue 6 , December 2019 , pp. 510 - 517
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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