I hadn't even seen those reports over the past year about the candidate exomoons. Last night, we got told the observers hadn't seen the moons either so, good company, I guess.
Some German mathematicians and modelists did what they do - making up fake moons. (Null-hypotheses, bitchez.) The fakes tend to get drowned in the noise. To avoid that, and to count a signal as a real moon, Earth observers need superCallistos: something larger than Mercury, with a long period/angle of separation. Physically larger, at that; we are talking transits. As for lightcurves from their sun, nein!
SuperCallisto implies wide Hill. On the plus side, if the star is G or even F, I'd figured - could be swimmable. But Earth would have to be near-impossibly fortunate to spot a transit from, what, 2 AU out from some other star.
CATCHING UP 12/16: Not me; ToughSf - he's linking (mistakenly at that) to 6 December. Someone needs to comment at him. SUNSPOTS 1/11/24: The Germans should consider improving their "noise" with fake sunspots; we might not need the full Mercury in such cases.
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