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Astronomers Find Vast Ring System Eclipsing a Distant Star

Posted by Soulskill on from the one-ring-to-occlude-them-all dept.

Zothecula writes: Astronomers from the Leiden Observatory, Netherlands, and the University of Rochester, New York, have discovered a massive ring system obscuring the light of the young star J1407b. It is believed that the rings belong to a massive planet or possibly a brown dwarf, with an orbital period of roughly 10 years. The giant planet boasts a ring system around 200 times larger than that of Saturn, the only planet in our solar system hosting a ring system of its own."

5 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have rings. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have rings, not just Saturn.

    1. Re:Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have rings. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Rings need gravity to hold them in place, low temperature to stop them from dissipating and need to be far enough from the parent star not to be blown away. You also need a replenishing source of material otherwise the ring material will coalesce over time.

      Maybe a rocky planet a few times bigger than earth could hold a ring made of the element mercury at a distance of from the sun as Mars.

    2. Re:Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have rings. by reverseengineer · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, the centaur object Chariklo (an icy asteroid between Saturn and Uranus) was recently discovered (2013) to have a set of rings, and a few other objects in that size range are suspected to.

      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
  2. Wait, what? by Red4man · · Score: 5, Informative

    planet boasts a ring system around 200 times larger than that of Saturn, the only planet in our solar system hosting a ring system of its own.

    Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune would like to have a word with you.

    Planets with Rings

    --
    Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
  3. Re:Now, THERE's a tourist attraction... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since so many people have already stepped up to shame the submitter and editor about botching the ONE statement not drawn directly from the article...

    I'll just say that I would love to see a night sky featuring this ring system at, oh, say, Jupiter's distance from Earth. It would appear several times larger than the full Moon, and many, many times brighter. Anybody want to cook up a rendering?

    This is stale news; the BBC covered it and included an artist's impression in this article more than a week ago.