Putting on my cynic's hat for a second... this smells a little of a rush job. I'd say that the astronomers in this case were sitting on the data wondering if it was real, when the other images came out last week.
Note this very telling quote from the press release:
Quote:
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"We cannot yet rule out definitively, however, that the candidate companion could be a foreground or background object," cautions co-worker Gael Chauvin. "To eliminate this very small possibility, we will need to make new observations that confirm the nature of the discovery."
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A repeat observation to confirm the common proper motion of the two objects (i.e. that they move across the sky together) is vital. It is something that both of the recent teams did
before they put out a press release.