In the study conducted using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and the results of which were published in the journal Nature, researchers decided to call the object they discovered “exosatellite” for now.
The structure in the orbit of the body known as the “brown dwarf”, which revolves around the Sun, breaks the routine.
Brown dwarfs are defined as celestial bodies that are too small to be stars but too large to be planets.
SOLAR SYSTEM TERMS ARE INSUFFICIENT
While evaluating the structure of the system, one of the research authors, Kevin Hoy, said, “This celestial body is large enough to be a planet, but it does not revolve directly around a star.
It orbits around another object that orbits a star. “We want to call it a satellite because it is the third ring in the system, but it does not look like the rocky satellites we know.”
Astrophysicist Alice Zurlo, who took part in the study, stated that the boundaries between planets, stars and satellites are clear in the Solar System, but all these concepts are mixed together in this system.
Astronomers, who have detected more than 6 thousand exoplanets to date, have not yet found a satellite whose existence outside the Solar System is confirmed.
If this discovery in the CD-35 2722 system is confirmed, it will be recorded as the first satellite detection outside the Solar System.
