A new study reveals the existence of an exoplanet whose ring system is as large as an entire solar system.

The planet is called J1407b and was first discovered in 2012 but was only recently studied in great detail. It lies roughly 430 light years away from our solar system.

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J1407b's ring system is the first of its kind to be discovered outside of the solar system. Its ring system is roughly 200 times larger than Saturn's rings. Researchers estimate that its mass is roughly 40 times heavier than Jupiter.

The research discovered over 30 individual rings, each one tens of millions of miles in diameter. Between each concentric ring are gaps that suggest the presence of exomoons or satellites similar to the many moons that shape Saturn's rings.

"We see the rings blocking as much as 95 percent of the light of this young Sun-like star for days, so there is a lot of material there that could then form satellites," said co-author Eric Mamajek of the University of Rochester, New York

He also estimates there is some 1-Earth mass-worth of finely ground material inside J1407b's rings.

Researchers were detected the exoplanet's ring system without seeing them. They used the same methods astronomers use to locate new alien worlds, which is detecting light variation in stars as their planets orbit and eclipse them.

"The star is much too far away to observe the rings directly, but we could make a detailed model based on the rapid brightness variations in the star light passing through the ring system. If we could replace Saturn's rings with the rings around J1407b, they would be easily visible at night and be many times larger than the full moon," explained lead study author Matthew Kenworthy, an astronomer at the Leiden Observatory in The Netherlands.

Details of the new study were published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Tagsalien planet, J1407b, solar system, Jupiter, Saturn's rings, exoplanet, space exploration, Galaxy, new planet