An Exoplanet That Puts Saturn’s Rings to Shame: What is J1407b? 

Dec 23, 2023, 18:34 IST

Harshit Sabarwal

All images: NASA, Ron Miller

Dec 23, 2023, 18:34 IST

Harshit Sabarwal

The ‘Super-Saturn’ 

The J1407b, also commonly known as ‘Super Saturn’, is an exoplanet located 433.8 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus. The J1407b is regarded as the first possible exoplanet with a ring system. It was discovered in 2012 by the University of Rochester. 

A Look at the Exoplanet’s Enormous Rings 

According to NASA, the diameter of J1407b’s ring system is nearly 120 million kilometres, more than 200 times as large as the rings of Saturn. If one could replace Saturn’s rings with the rings around J1407b, they would be easily visible at night at Earth and be many times larger than the full moon. 

Exoplanet Much Larger than Jupiter or Saturn 

NASA said J1407b is much larger than Jupiter or Saturn. The mass of J1407b has been difficult to ascertain, but it is most likely to in the range of about 10 to 40 times of Jupiter. 

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