A disk of material around an alien planet may be forming moons as we watch

So far, astronomers have found nearly 4,500 exoplanets orbiting other stars. But, despite that large number, there has been no solid detection of an exomoon, a moon orbiting any of those planets* .

However, there’s intriguing evidence that a planet orbiting a nearby star may have the raw materials to build a moon, and one or more moons may be forming there right now. New (and extremely cool) observations confirm earlier ones that the planet is surrounded by a disk of dust with enough mass to ma...