Exomoon Novae

The smallest class of orbiting objects in our galaxy, exomoons, remain to be illuminated by photometry. The most common exoplanet detection methods: radial velocity & transit, even with next generation large aperture telescopes, will have great difficulty detecting such a trivially massive object. In this way an indirect spectral technique is required, which, on the basis of tidal and plasma physics-- is expected to drive bright sodium novae indicative of an exomoon.  
While Jupiter's moon Io, glows at ~10^14 Watts of tidal power, close-in transiting exomoons are expected to periodically dissipate >10^18 Watts on average, resulting in transient gas absorptions of metallic resonance lines (e.g. Na/K doublet), which fade as the volcanic exomoon orbits its primary. I report two sodium novae at two different transits of the hot Saturn WASP-49 A b, suspected to host an exo-Io based on its deep NaD line absorption. The two sodium novae endure for ~ 40 minutes each, roughly 10x the photoionization time for neutral sodium, and roughly 3x as short as the exoplanet transit itself. No other gases are seen thus far in the visible, however the recent NIRSPEC & MIRI/JWST detections of SO2 and SiO2 at two other candidate exo-Io systems (WASP-39 and WASP-17) presents the opportunity to characterize the afterglow of these satellites, assess their progenitor masses, and attempt to reconstruct the detonation process of these new, explosive objects in our galaxy.