The exoplanets that hint at life billions of years older than Earth: Five new planets raises possibility of super-advanced civilisations






Solar system's parent star, named Kepler-444, is 117 light years from Earth
11.2 billion-year-old star formed when the universe was a fifth of its age
Five Earth-sized planets orbit the star with years equivalent to 10 days
Find shows Earth-sized planets have formed throughout universe's history
By MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 19:34 GMT, 13 July 2015 | UPDATED: 20:14 GMT, 13 July 2015
     

A solar system including five Earth-sized planets has been discovered which is so ancient it was born not long after the dawn of time - and experts say it could help find life on planets far older than we expected.
The system's parent star, named Kepler-444, is 117 light years from Earth and 11.2 billion years old.
When the sun-like star was formed out of a primordial cloud of gas and dust, the universe was just a fifth of its current age.
A solar system including five Earth-sized planets has been discovered, which is so ancient, it was born not long after the dawn of time. This artist's impression shows Kepler-444, 17 light years from Earth. Its planets (also shown) were detected from the dimming that occurs when they transit the disc of their parent star
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A solar system including five Earth-sized planets has been discovered, which is so ancient, it was born not long after the dawn of time. This artist's impression shows Kepler-444, 17 light years from Earth. Its planets (also shown) were detected from the dimming that occurs when they transit the disc of their parent star
HOW DID ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER THE PLANETS?
Astronomers made the discovery after trawling through four years' worth of data collected by Nasa's Kepler space telescope.




Dr Campante's team conducted the research using a technique called asteroseismology, which involves 'listening' to vibrations caused by sound trapped within a star.
The oscillations led to tiny pulse-like changes in brightness, which allowed the researchers to measure the star's diameter, mass and age.
The planets were detected from the dimming that occurred when they passed across the face of the star.
By measuring the minute fading of light coming from the star the scientists were able to calculate the relative size of the planets.
In January, a group led by Tiago Campante — an astroseismology or 'starquake' researcher at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom — announced the discovery of five tiny, likely rocky worlds close to an ancient star.
Now he says that discovery could lead to new insights into where alien life could be.
'This system gives us hope that there are other habitable worlds that we can't detect because we don't have enough observing timespan yet,' Campante told Nasa's Astrobio.net.
Upcoming observatories could change that, he added.
Whether life can live for billions of years, however, is pure speculation.
'If intelligent life develops in a system as old as this one, would it still exist or would they extinguish themselves?' Campante asked.
 
The star is named Kepler-444 after NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission, which first made a tentative discovery.
The star was originally dubbed KOI-3158, but has just been re-named.
Astronomers have shown that it hosts five planets with diameters ranging between those of Mercury and Venus.
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That makes them roughly the same size, or slightly smaller than Earth.
'There are far-reaching implications for this discovery,' said Dr Tiago Campante, from the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy.
'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.
'By the time the Earth formed, the planets in this system were already older than our planet is today.
The planet hunter strikes again: Astronomers made the discovery after trawling through four years' worth of data collected by Nasa’s Kepler space telescope (illustrated)
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The planet hunter strikes again: Astronomers made the discovery after trawling through four years' worth of data collected by Nasa's Kepler space telescope (illustrated)
'This discovery may now help to pinpoint the beginning of what we might call the 'era of planet formation.'
He said in a talk earlier this year: 'Earth-size planets may have readily formed at earlier epochs in the universe's history when metals were more scarce.'
However, the chances of an advanced race of beings living on any of the planets are remote, despite Kepler-444 being 25 per cent smaller and 700 degrees cooler than the sun.
Each of the worlds is so close to its star that its year - the time taken to complete one orbit of the star - is less than 10 days long.
At that distance, the planets would be much hotter than Mercury and unable to support Earth-like life.
The system's innermost planet is the size of Mercury, the middle three are the size of Mars, and the outermost is slightly smaller than Venus.
The scientists found an ancient planetary system containing five planets (shown at the bottom of the illustration, compared to other planets at the top). The system's innermost planet is the size of Mercury, the middle three are the size of Mars, and the outermost is slightly smaller than Venus
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The scientists found an ancient planetary system containing five planets (shown at the bottom of the illustration, compared to other planets at the top). The system's innermost planet is the size of Mercury, the middle three are the size of Mars, and the outermost is slightly smaller than Venus
IS THERE LIFE ELSEWHERE?
The Fermi Paradox questions why have we not found aliens, despite the existence of hundreds of billions of exosolar systems in our galactic neighborhood in which life might evolve.
Physicist Enrico Fermi devised it in 1950.He believed it was too extraordinary that not a single extraterrestrial signal or engineering project has yet been detected.
He claimed there must be some kind of barrier that prevents the rise of intelligent, self-aware, technologically advanced, space-colonising civilisations.
This barrier is sometimes referred to as a 'Great Filter'. The absence could be caused because either intelligent life is extremely rare or intelligent life has a tendency to go extinct.
Astronomers discovered the system after trawling through four years' worth of data collected by Nasa's Kepler space telescope.
Dr Campante's team conducted the research using a technique called asteroseismology, which involves 'listening' to vibrations caused by sound trapped within a star.
The oscillations led to tiny pulse-like changes in brightness, which allowed the researchers to measure the star's diameter, mass and age.
The planets were detected from the dimming that occurred when they passed across the face of the star.
By measuring the minute fading of light coming from the star the scientists were able to calculate the relative size of the planets.
Professor Bill Chaplin, who co-authored the study, said: 'The first discoveries of exoplanets around other sun-like stars in our galaxy have fuelled efforts to find other worlds like Earth and other terrestrial planets outside our solar system.
'We are now getting first glimpses of the variety of galactic environments conducive to the formation of these small worlds.
Kepler-444, which is 11.2 billion years old, is a quarter of the Sun's size but bright enough to be seen with binoculars in the constellation Lyra (illustrated)
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Kepler-444, which is 11.2 billion years old, is a quarter of the Sun's size but bright enough to be seen with binoculars in the constellation Lyra (illustrated)
'As a result, the path towards a more complete understanding of early planet formation in the galaxy is now unfolding before us.'
Kepler-444 is a quarter of the Sun's size but bright enough to be seen with binoculars in the constellation Lyra.
Professor Steve Kawaler, a member of the team from Iowa State University, said: 'This is one of the oldest systems in the galaxy.
'Kepler-444 came from the first generation of stars. This system tells us that planets were forming nearly seven billion years before our own Solar System.
'Planetary systems around stars have been a common feature of our galaxy for a long, long time.'
THE KEPLER MISSION SO FAR
Kepler is a space observatory launched by Nasa in 2009 to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.
It's designed to survey our region of the Milky Way in a bid to discover Earth-size exoplanets.
It works by detecting regular variations in brightness of stars, which are caused by orbiting exoplanets passing in front of them.
Kepler: NASA's mission to find habitable planets

So far, the observatory has found 1,013 confirmed exoplanets in 440 systems as well as 3,199 possible planets.
In November last year, astronomers said there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in habitable zones within the Milky Way, based on the data collected so far.
Kepler was originally built to last three-and-a-half years, and since then, experts have worked to extend its life. But in August 2013, Nasa announced it had given up trying to fix two failed reaction wheels, meaning that the mission had to be modified.
The 'K2 extension' was announced in May last year, meaning that the partially paralysed observatory will detect habitable planets around smaller and dimmer dwarf stars.
Last month, Nasa announced that Kepler had found its 1000th confirme





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