Yes, it is. At least as outrageous as implying that researchers are responsible for how media may portray their work. But no hard feelings there, to be sure.

Phil, considering the age of the star and the size of the planet and rings, is it possible that the rings are in the process of coalescing into moons of the planet?

Actually, the presence of rings suggests there’s ALREADY moons. If there’s a gap in a disk, something has to be clearing that gap. For instance, with Saturn’s rings, the enormous Cassini Division is cleared by Saturn’s moon Mimas (which lies outside the rings but exerts gravitational influence on them).

@30 VinceRN:

MANY professional astronomers read Bad Astronomy.

In the whole business of exoplanet hunting, confirmation of a discovery is the key. I would be really interested to see outcomes of the RV analysis when sufficient spectroscopic data is eventually collected. For now it is a very interesting idea that awaits confirmation.

Oh – and sorry for calling it a bull. That was far too strong. I am just immensely annoyed by how media respond to such announcements. I work on one of telescopes following up SWASP candidates and my primary job is concerned with rejecting planetary candidates that are put forward basing on raw SWASP data (exactly the sort that you were dealing with). In 95% of all situations followup “kills” these “planets” before anyone even starts thinking about publishing any information about them. Coming from that sort of background, your announcement sounds a little preliminary, and the way in which it got picked up by media is just purely outrageous.

Again we have a strange object transiting across its star and creating a wonderfully intriguing puzzle with some exotic proposed solutions. Perhaps we’re jumping too quickly into the Saturn-like rings conclusion but still .. wow.

@23. Eric M – January 12th, 2012 at 7:33 pm :

Congratulations! Splendid discovery and work there – I can’t wait to hear & read more about this. Please relay my congrats and thanks to the rest of your team too.

That is just superluminous news. To be able to discover planetary rings – far larger than Saturn’s to be sure but rings nonetheless – around an extrasolar planet and a relatively distant one at that.

That is.. just .. Wow. Marvellously WOW.

I am offically thunder-struck.

Now, because of this, if a planet is sufficiently distant from it’s star, it will only be graced with a fraction of the stars light. Hence: distance was probably more of a factor than size. Besides that, it most likely is a gas giant, which would mean it’s made from light weight elements, which would mean it’s probably quite distant from it’s star, just like our gas giants.