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Recently, astronomers discovered a planet with a huge ring system. The gigantic ring is around 200 times larger than the ring of Saturn.
Researchers at Leiden Observatory in The Netherlands spotted the ring system with scientists of the University of Rochester. They claim that these rings are located nearly 420 light years away from the Earth.
Scientists observed the light rays during the 52-day eclipse. They noticed a strange and irregular light pattern around the brown dwarf known as J1407b.
Surprisingly, the bend in these light rays reveals exact diameter of the ring system. It shows that the ring system is around 120 million kilometer wide.
Mathew Kenworthy, an astronomer at the Leiden Observatory explained the discovery in detail. He informs that light curve offered unbelievable information. It is an extremely difficult task to observe the star rings. Therefore, astronomers designed a detailed model of rings based on the speedy changes in the star light passing through them.
Additionally, scientists accumulated the data from the Super WASP project. Afterwards, they closely examined each and every minute detail of it. The study disclosed that the ring companion J140b completes a single orbit in a decade.
Even though scientists failed to measure accurate the mass of J1407b, but they believe that its mass is similar to the mass of Jupiter.
The research is explained in detail in the Astrophysical Journal
