Astronomers believe alien life may exist on exoplanet moons

In the search for an Earth-like alien world, astronomers have had their eyes set on planets beyond our solar system, but some moons orbiting some of these exoplanets may be just as likely to support life, scientists say.

Astronomers have discovered more than 800 exoplanets, with many more candidate worlds awaiting confirmation by follow-up observations. Most of them, however, are gas giants, similar to Jupiter, and only a handful have a solid surface and orbit their host stars in the habitable zone, the range where liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, can exist.

But a team of astronomers says these uninhabitable exoplanets could host habitable exomoons.

"There is a habitable zone for exomoons, it's just a little different than the habitable zone for exoplanets," Rory Barnes of the University of Washington and the NASA Astrobiology Institute said in a statement.

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