The very young planet, about 420 light years away, orbits a very young sun-like star with rings similar to those of the planet Saturn.
As scientists have discovered, this rather unusual find has really massive rings around it. How massive are these rings? They are believed to be 200 times the size of Saturn's rings. Thus, J1407b was named Super Saturn. The new planet itself is 20 times the size of Saturn.
The large ring system was discovered by scientists after they saw that it severely dwarfs the planet's light for several weeks. The rings are composed of various substances, and their mass is equal to the mass of the entire planet Earth.
The rings are believed to be 180 million kilometers long. The rings of this planet are larger than the distance between the Earth and the Sun. The question arises as to how such large rings can exist when they should already be torn apart by gravity.
One likely answer to this is that the rings rotate in the opposite direction from the planet. This means that the particles that form the ring system do not approach the sun for a long time, which makes it possible to maintain their ring formation, despite the intense gravitational attraction of the star.
Since the gap is huge enough and the planet is still at an early age, it is believed that the gap in the rings is due to the newly formed satellite, which accounts for up to 80% of the Earth's mass. It is likely similar to the vast satellite system of Jupiter and Saturn, which is still in the process of formation.