Astronomers from the Netherlands have made a surprising new discovery, finding a planet with rings that are bigger in size and number compared to the rings of Saturn, Blastr reported.
The rings of Saturn are unfortunately second best now when compared to the planet J1047b, as Dutch scientists from the Leiden Observatory and the University of Rochester from the United States discovered that it had a total of 37 rings that were 200 times bigger than that of Saturn's rings.
To compare, the rings of Saturn measure 175,000 miles across, but J1047b's rings measure around 55 million miles. To compare it even more, the distance between the Earth and the Sun is 92 million miles, according to Popular Science.
"If we could replace Saturn's rings with the rings around J1047b, they would be easily visible at night and be many times larger than the full moon," explained Matthew Kenworthy, the author of the publication released about J1047b.
Professor Eric Mamajek from the University of Rochester even called it a "super Saturn," according to BBC.
J1047b is also around 10 to 40 times the size of Jupiter, so large that scientists are still studying the planet and trying to identify what type of cosmic body it is.
So far, it has been ruled out as a star, though it seems to be something between a star and a planet. They're trying to see if it is a true exoplanet, meaning a planet found outside our solar system that orbits its own star, or a brown dwarf, meaning an object of a size between that of a small star and a giant planet.
Astronomers discovered J1047b and its rings with thanks to the United Kingdom's SuperWASP, which is considered the top exoplanet detection program in the world, according to Discover.
The SuperWASP detects whenever an exoplanet crosses its parent stars, causing the planet's light to dim. For the J1047b, they noticed eclipses lasting 56 days.
Since all the rings are an impressive sight, astronomers have reason to believe that the rings will eventually become more transparent. Moons, other satellites and other celestial bodies are likely to form in the debris field of the rings over the next million years and affect their formation. It was the same thing that happened with Saturn and Jupiter, so it was likely that J1047b will undergo the same development.
Because of this, J1047b seems like a step back in time and astronomers are planning to use it as an example as they try to figure out the chemical and physical properties of how planetary disks are formed.