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Astronomers may have found a moon that's completely different from anything in our solar system.

It's only the second space object discovered that may be an exomoon, or a moon outside of our solar system. The giant moon was found orbiting a Jupiter-size planet called Kepler 1708b, located 5,500 light-years from Earth.

A study detailing these findings published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

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The newly detected celestial body is 2.6 times larger than Earth. There's no analog for such a large moon in our own system. For reference, our own moon is 3.7 times smaller than Earth.

It's the second time that David Kipping, assistant professor of astronomy and leader of the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University, and his team have found an exomoon candidate. They discovered the first one, a Neptune-size moon orbiting a giant exoplanet called Kepler-1625b, in 2018.

"Astronomers have found more than 10,000 exoplanet candidates so far, but exomoons are far more challenging," Mr Kipping said in a statement. "They are terra incognita."

Understanding more about moons, such as how they form, whether they could support life, and if they play a role in the potential habitability of planets, could lead to a greater understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve.

Hard-to-find objects

Mr Kipping and his team are still working on confirming that the first candidate they found is actually an exomoon, and this latest discovery will likely face the same uphill battle.

Moons are common in our solar system, which has more than 200 natural satellites, but the long search for interstellar moons has largely been unfruitful. Astronomers have had success locating exoplanets around stars outside our solar system, but exomoons are harder to pinpoint because of their smaller size.

More than 4000 confirmed exoplanets have been discovered across the galaxy, but that doesn't mean finding them was easy. Many of them have been detected using the transit method, or looking for dips in starlight when a planet passes in front of its star. Spotting moons, which are smaller and cause even more diminutive dips in starlight, is extra difficult.

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To find this second potential moon, Kipping and his team used data from NASA's retired planet-hunting Kepler mission to survey some of the coldest gas giant exoplanets the telescope found. The researchers used this criteria in their search because in our solar system, the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn have the most moons orbiting them.

Out of the 70 planets they studied, only one revealed a companion signal that appeared to be a moon, with only a one per cent probability of it being something else.

"It's a stubborn signal," Mr Kipping said. "We threw the kitchen sink at this thing but it just won't go away."

Three ways a moon could form

The newly discovered candidate shares similarities with the first potential exomoon discovery. Both are likely gaseous, which accounts for their massive size, and they are far from their host stars.

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There are three primary theories about how moons form. One is when large space objects collide and the blasted-off material becomes a moon. Another is capture, when objects are captured and pulled into orbit around a large planet — such as Neptune's moon Triton, which is believed to be a captured Kuiper Belt object. And the third is moons forming from the materials, like gas and dust swirling around stars, that created the planets in the early days of the solar system.

It's possible that both exomoon candidates started out as planets that were eventually dragged into orbit around larger planets like Kepler 1625b and Kepler 1708b.

Giant moons are likely an anomaly

Mr Kipping believes it's unlikely that all moons outside of our solar system are as large as these two candidates, which may make them the oddballs, rather than the standard. "The first detections in any survey will generally be the weirdos," he said. "The big ones that are simply easiest to detect with our limited sensitivity."

To confirm that the two candidates are exomoons will require follow-up observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope in 2023. Meanwhile, Mr Kipping and his team continue to gather evidence in support of the exomoons.

The fact that each associated planet takes longer than one Earth year to complete an orbit around its star slows the process of discovery.

"Confirmation requires seeing the moon transits repeat multiple times," Kipping said. "The long-period nature of our target planets means that we only have two transits in hand here, just not enough to see a series of moon transits necessary to claim a confirmed detection."

If they are confirmed, it could be the beginning of a new acceptance that exomoons are as common as exoplanets outside of our solar system.

The first exoplanet wasn't discovered until the 1990s, and the bulk of the exoplanets known today weren't revealed until Kepler launch in 2009.

"Those planets are alien compared to our home system," Mr Kipping said. "But they have revolutionised our understanding of how planetary systems form."

Australia's east coast is braced for a wet weekend, with showers and storms set to soak several regions.

Sydney is expecting a possible shower today, with a potential storm brewing on Saturday, with clearer skies on Sunday.

Fog rolled in across the city this morning, with the Bureau of Meteorology issuing a driving danger warning for commuters.

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It's expected to clear up before midday.

Things are humid in Melbourne with showers, a possible storm and a top of 32C today and tomorrow, but clearing up on Monday.

Falls of up to 35mm are forecast for today.

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Hobart too is looking at a wet weekend, with showers developing from today.

By contrast, in Brisbane Saturday and Sunday are expected to be dry, with temperatures in the low 30C range.

Showers are set to hit the Queensland capital next week.

Adelaide and Perth are also set for hot and dry weekends, with Perth reaching 40C on Tuesday.

Italy has honoured the 32 victims of the Costa Concordia shipwreck on the 10th anniversary of the disaster with a commemoration on the Tuscan island of Giglio, which recalled the horror of the night the cruise ship struck a reef and capsized.

Some of the 4200 survivors attended Thursday's events, which began with a mass and were set to end with a candlelit vigil marking the moment, 9.45pm (local time), that the Concordia hit the rocks that sliced a 70m gash in its hull.

Bells rang in the same Giglio church that opened its doors and took in hundreds of passengers who abandoned ship and reached shore in lifeboats that freezing night.

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Some had climbed off the lopsided liner on rope ladders after it flipped onto its side; others were plucked from the decks by rescue helicopters.

"I invite you to have the courage to look forward," Grosseto Bishop Giovanni Roncari told survivors, relatives of the dead and Coast Guard officials who had helped coordinate the rescue.

"Hope doesn't cancel the tragedy and pain, but it teaches us to look beyond the present moment without forgetting it."

Under a brilliant sun and blue sky, survivors and relatives of the victims then set out on Coast Guard cutters to place a wreath in the choppy waters where the 114,000-tonne, 300m liner finally came to rest.

Her captain, Francesco Schettino, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter and other charges for having ordered the crew to steer the ship off course and closer to Giglio in a stunt.

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After the ship hit the reef, the engine room flooded and generators failed, causing a power outage, while the vessel started to list.

Evidence presented at the trial showed Schettino downplayed the severity of the situation in communications with the Coast Guard and delayed an evacuation order, then abandoned ship before all the passengers and crew were off.

Giglio's vice mayor at the time, Mario Pellegrini, had climbed on board the listing ship that night to help coordinate the rescue, and found sheer chaos in the absence of orders from the captain or crew.

He recalled he finally climbed down after the last passengers and crew had been evacuated, at about 6 am the following morning.

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"The memories I have from that night inside the ship are terrible, of the tears and desperation of the people," he said on Thursday.

"I would have wanted to save everyone, but thinking about it again, everything I could do, I did."

The tenth anniversary is also recalling how the residents of Giglio took in the 4200 surviving passengers and crew, giving them food, blankets and a place to rest until day broke and they were ferried to the mainland.

Giglio's people then lived with the Concordia's hulk for another two years until it was righted and hauled away for scrap.

"It was right to be here, to pay tribute to those victims, but the primary motivation is to thank and greet the people who helped me that night, from Giglio," said survivor Luciano Castro.

Giglio's residents for their part warmly welcomed Kevin Rebello, whose brother Russel, a Concordia waiter, was the last person unaccounted-for until crews discovered his remains while dismantling the ship in 2014 in a Genoa shipyard.

Mr Rebello had become close to many Giglio residents and rescuers during the months that divers searched for his brother.

And on Thursday, as he arrived for the commemorative mass, he received an award from the Civil Protection Agency.

"This is for (Russel)," Mr Rebello told reporters as he clutched the plaque.

"He would be proud of it."

The anniversary comes as the cruise ship industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention last month warned people to avoid cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the infection risk.

For Concordia survivors, the COVID-19 infections on cruise ships are another indication that passenger safety still isn't a top industry priority.

Concordia passengers were largely left on their own to find life jackets and a functioning lifeboat. Because of the delayed evacuation order, many lifeboats couldn't be lowered because the ship was already on its side.

Ester Percossi recalled being thrown to the ground in the dining room by the initial impact of the reef gashing into the hull "like an earthquake." The lights went out, and bottles, glasses and plates flew off the tables.

"We got up and with great effort went out on deck and there we got the life vests — those that we could find, because everyone was grabbing them from each other — to save themselves," she recalled.

"There was no law. Just survival and that is it."

Former Coast Guard Commander Gregorio De Falco returned for the commemorations, 10 years after he became something of a national hero when audio emerged of his expletive-laden communications with Schettino in the hours after impact, ordering him to get back on board and coordinate the rescue.

"You prepare all your life for these mass rescue operations with the hope that you never have to do one," Mr De Falco said.

"But it happened to us."

Costa sent representatives to the ceremonies and issued a statement saying the company's thoughts were with the victims and their relatives.

Costa noted that since the disaster, it had undertaken the massive operation to right the ship, remove it, and restore the damaged seabed.

The cruise line, a unit of US-based Carnival, thanked the rescue crews and residents of Giglio as well as the Costa employees "who gave their assistance and worked restlessly that night and in the following phases with generosity and courage."

Queen Elizabeth II has stripped Prince Andrew of all his honorary military titles and royal roles in charities and other civic groups, Buckingham Palace says, amid a growing furore over allegations he sexually abused a teenage girl supplied to him by financier Jeffrey Epstein.

"With the Queen's approval and agreement, the Duke of York's military affiliations and royal patronages have been returned to the Queen," Buckingham Palace said in a statement released on Thursday evening (Friday morning AEDT).

"The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen."

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Patronages refer to roles in charities, military and civic groups that the royals support.

The Duke of York has consistently denied the sexual assault allegations.

More than 150 British navy and army veterans had written to the Queen asking her to strip her second son of all his military ranks and titles after a US judge said Wednesday a sex assault lawsuit against the prince could go ahead.

In a joint letter issued by the group Republic, they said they were "upset and angry" that Andrew "brought the services he is associated with into disrepute."

The Queen is head of the armed forces and honorary military appointments are given by her.

Andrew stepped back from public duties in 2019, after a BBC interview about his friendship with Epstein drew widespread criticism. But he had retained his honorary titles, including Vice Admiral of the Royal Navy, until now.

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A US district judge on Wednesday refused to dismiss a civil case against Andrew by an American woman, Virginia Giuffre.

Ms Giuffre sued the 61-year-old Andrew in August, saying she was coerced into sexual encounters with him in 2001, when she was 17, by Epstein and his longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Ms Giuffre said she was sexually abused by Andrew at Maxwell's London home, at Epstein's New York mansion and his estate in the US Virgin Islands.

District Judge Lewis A Kaplan rejected an argument by Andrew's lawyers that Ms Giuffre's lawsuit should be thrown out at an early stage because of an old legal settlement she had with Epstein, who she claims set up sexual encounters with the prince.

He stressed that he wasn't ruling on the truth of the allegations.

Andrew's lawyers have said that the royal never sexually abused or assaulted Giuffre and that he "unequivocally denies Giuffre's false allegations against him".

Palace officials have declined to comment on the "ongoing legal matter."

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said it had no comment about the Duke's military titles being handed back to the Queen, and that it was a matter for the palace.