title: Formation, habitability, and detection of extrasolar moons.
abstract: The diversity and quantity of moons in the Solar System suggest a manifold population of natural satellites exist around extrasolar planets. Of peculiar interest from an astrobiological perspective, the number of sizable moons in the stellar habitable zones may outnumber planets in these circumstellar regions. With technological and theoretical methods now allowing for the detection of sub-Earth-sized extrasolar planets, the first detection of an extrasolar moon appears feasible. In this review, we summarize formation channels of massive exomoons that are potentially detectable with current or near-future instruments. We discuss the orbital effects that govern exomoon evolution, we present a framework to characterize an exomoon's stellar plus planetary illumination as well as its tidal heating, and we address the techniques that have been proposed to search for exomoons. Most notably, we show that natural satellites in the range of 0.1-0.5 Earth mass (i) are potentially habitable, (ii) can form within the circumplanetary debris and gas disk or via capture from a binary, and (iii) are detectable with current technology.
authors.affiliation: 1 Origins Institute, Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University , Hamilton, Canada .
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Heller
authors.forename: Darren
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kipping
authors.forename: Mary Anne
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Limbach
authors.forename: Edwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Greenberg
authors.forename: Takanori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sasaki
authors.forename: Emeline
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bolmont
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Grasset
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.forename: Rory
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Barnes
authors.forename: Jorge I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Zuluaga
mesh_terms: D019419:Evolution, Planetary; D018559:Exobiology; D005118:Extraterrestrial Environment; D018538:Jupiter; D060328:Magnetic Phenomena; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D000069497:Origin of Life; D016083:Planets; D018539:Saturn; D012993:Solar Energy; D016082:Solar System