Interesting article. I'm not an astronomer, or any kind of scientist, but I tried perusing the paper anyway. What I expected to find was some indication that the stars in question are aligned on a plane - rather than being varying distances [1] from our pov and only looking like a ring to us. Is this information present and I missed it?
My other thought, with all respect to the expertise of the scientists involved, is that when we observe the universe at this massive scale it may be inevitable that structures will just appear out of the data, even with very high statistical significance. I don't know if this is a scientifically defensible position to take though.
Again - I'm not a scientist and I don't know what I'm talking about. Just musing, but interested in the opinions of others more informed than me.
[1] I'm aware that determining distance over cosmological distances is very difficult
My other thought, with all respect to the expertise of the scientists involved, is that when we observe the universe at this massive scale it may be inevitable that structures will just appear out of the data, even with very high statistical significance. I don't know if this is a scientifically defensible position to take though.
Again - I'm not a scientist and I don't know what I'm talking about. Just musing, but interested in the opinions of others more informed than me.
[1] I'm aware that determining distance over cosmological distances is very difficult