This past January, scientists led by university of Birmingham astroseismologists discovered a solar system with five Earth-sized planets dating back to the dawn of the Galaxy. Thanks to the NASA Kepler mission, the scientists observed a pale-yellow Sun-like star (Kepler-444) hosting five planets with sizes between Mercury and Venus that was formed 11.2 billion years ago, when the Universe was less than 20 per cent its current age. This is the oldest known system of terrestrial-sized planets in our Galaxy - two and a half times older than the Earth.
"The first discoveries of exoplanets around other Sun-like stars in our Galaxy have fueled efforts to find other worlds like Earth and other terrestrial planets outside our Solar System," said Bill Chaplin, from the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy, who has been leading the team studying solar-type stars using astroseismology for the Kepler Mission. "We are now getting first glimpses of the variety of Galactic environments conducive to the formation of these small worlds. As a result, the path towards a more complete understanding of early planet formation in the Galaxy is now unfolding before us."
