Astronomers Discover First Plausible Exomoon - A Jupiter-Mass World Orbiting a Brown Dwarf

Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope detected what may be the first moon found outside our solar system - a Jupiter-mass object orbiting a brown dwarf in CD-35 2722, 73 light-years away. Published in Nature, the discovery blurs lines between stars, planets, and moons. The object has 0.9 Jupiter masses and orbits a brown dwarf 37x Jupiter's mass. "This system is hard to define using words like planet and moon," said ESO astronomer Kevin Hoy. The team used CRIRES+ on VLT from Oct 2023 to Feb 2026. Alice Zurlo called it "the first plausible detection of an exosatellite." **Summary:** First plausible exomoon detected orbiting a brown dwarf 73 light-years away.