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Table of Contents

• ↓ Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration
• ↓ Moon or Planet? The Awkward Case of CD-35 2722B
• ↓ New Propulsion Systems for Deep Space Smallsats
• ↓ What the Comments Taught Me: A Reply on Self-Replicating Probes
• ↓ A Metallurgist’s Doubts About Self-Replicating Probes
• ↓ New Horizons: Pushing Toward the ‘Termination Shock’
• ↓ Top Alternatives to centauri-dreams.org

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"Problems of definition will long be with us as we take ever closer looks at exoplanets. But they’re suddenly on everyone’s mind because of the detection of what some are calling an ‘exomoon’ in the system CD-35 2722, found in the constellation Columba. The primary in this system is an M-dwarf thought to be 50–200 million years old. I imagine there is no shortage of flare activity on this star, although the paper doesn’t get into that. The interesting finding in this work just published in Nature is expressed in its title: “Planetary-Mass Exosatellite Detected Around a Star’s Substellar Companion.”"

"Image: This illustration shows the system around the star CD-35 2722, with the newly found moon-like object at the centre. The star –– the point source to the left –– has about half the mass of our Sun, and it is orbited by a brown dwarf, the reddish-brown object seen here in the foreground (right). The brown dwarf has about 37 times the mass of Jupiter: too massive to be a planet, but not massive enough to have sustained nuclear fusion like stars. This brown dwarf is, in turn, orbited by a newly discovered object at least as massive as Jupiter, seen at the centre of this image. This new object, found with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), is difficult to label. It behaves like a moon in the sense that it orbits an object that orbits a star. But this ‘moon’ is massive enough to be a planet, and the object it orbits, a brown dwarf, is neither a planet nor a star. Credit: ESO."

"So is this the first solid detection of a ‘exomoon’? I can’t describe it as that, and ‘exosatellite’ is an awkward coinage. What we have here is an M-dwarf orbited by a brown dwarf about 30 times the mass of Jupiter. It is the brown dwarf, not the star, that is being orbited by a third object, evidently a gas giant with a minimum mass of 0.743 Jupiter masses. How this arrangement drives orbital mechanics of any other objects in this system (none have yet been found) is well worth pondering. For now, we see again the problem of definition."

"Kevin Hoy (Universidad Diego Portales, Chile) is lead author of the paper on this work:"

Key Topics & Focus Areas for centauri-dreams.org:

Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration

Moon or Planet? The Awkward Case of CD-35 2722B

New Propulsion Systems for Deep Space Smallsats

What the Comments Taught Me: A Reply on Self-Replicating Probes

A Metallurgist’s Doubts About Self-Replicating Probes

New Horizons: Pushing Toward the ‘Termination Shock’