Astronomers Discover Ancient Solar System With 5 Earth-Like Planets

[Buster's Uncle]

Astronomers Discover Ancient Solar System With 5 Earth-Like Planets
ABC News
ALYSSA NEWCOMB  January‎ ‎27‎, ‎2015



The discovery of a solar system as old as the Milky Way and with five Earth-like planets could shed new light on the possibility of ancient life forms in the galaxy.

The planets orbit around Kepler 444, which at 11.2 billion years old, is more than twice as old as the sun, according to researchers at the University of Birmingham in Britain who published their findings today in the Astrophysical Journal.

Despite being 117 light-years away from Earth, in the direction of the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, researchers were able to learn more about the solar system using a practice called astroseismology.

Listening to the hum of Kepler 444, the team was able notice the slight changes in brightness created by the noise, which enabled them to measure the star's diameter, mass and calculate its approximate age.

Researchers studied the brightness of the star over time and detected planets passing in front of it, creating a slight dimming effect. Depending how much the light was dimmed, researchers were then able to measure the size of the planets, using Kepler 444 as a baseline.

"There are far-reaching implications for this discovery," lead researcher Tiago Campante said in a statement. "We now know that Earth-sized planets have formed throughout most of the Universe's 13.8 billion year history, which could provide scope for the existence of ancient life in the Galaxy."

Since the newly discovered planets are older than Earth is, researchers hope that by studying them, they may learn more about planet formation -- including what could be in store for our home.


https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/astronomers-discover-ancient-solar-system-5-earth-planets-160200291--abc-news-tech.html

[Geo]

Towards Cygnus and Lyra? Low Kepler catalog number? Must've been one of the first batches of 'hits' of the Kepler telescope then. They took a long time pruning them out of the data then. Especially since they have such short orbits.

[Buster's Uncle]

One imagines the journal article linked would answer a lot of questions.

[Geo]

It only hits the main info compared to the article I read on ScienceDaily.
That said, sofar I haven't seen more detailed info on the star's spectral class then 'orange main sequence dwarf star'.