Astronomers find new solar system

A newly discovered solar system - with five small rocky planets - makes our 4.5 billion year old solar system look like a baby.

An international team of astronomers announced today that this extra solar system is 11.2 billion years old. With the age of the universe pegged at 13.8 billion years, this is the oldest star with close-to-Earth-size planets ever found.

"We've never seen anything like this - it is such an old star and the large number of small planets make it very special," Astronomer Daniel Huber said in a statement. "It is extraordinary that such an ancient system of terrestrial-sized planets formed when the universe was just starting out, at a fifth its current age," he said.

The five planets are smaller than Earth, with the largest about the size of Venus and the smallest just bigger than Mercury.

These planets orbit their star in less than 10 days at less than one-tenth the Earth's distance from the sun, which makes them too close for habitation, said Mr Huber.

NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft was used to make the observations over a four-year period. Thus, the bright sunlike star at the heart of this system is named Kepler-444. It's in the Constellation Lyre.

Kepler has discovered more than 1,000 confirmed exoplanets - planets outside our solar system - and nearly 4,200 candidates since its launch in 2009 and its revitalization in last year following a breakdown in its pointing system. It reached the 1,000-mark earlier this month.

http://tvnz.co.nz