Astronomers have identified an alien solar system that surprisingly resembles our own solar system.
Researchers at MIT, the University of California at Santa Cruz, have discovered Kepler-30 star system which is 10,000 light-years away from the Earth. According to them, the new-found solar system has a bright star like Sun at the center. It rotates around a vertical axis and its three planets, Kepler-30b, Kepler -30c and Kepler-30d, have orbits in the same plane and do not deviate substantially from them, similar to the planets of our solar system. All the planets are much bigger than Earth while two are even bigger than the Jupiter, say the scientists.
The Kepler-30 solar system has been identified using a 0.95-meter diameter Kepler telescope.
"In agreement with the theory, we have found the star's spin to be aligned with the planets," said study co-author Dan Fabrycky, of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "So this result is profound because it is basic data testing the standard planet formation theory."
The research team has maintained that the new study requires more data to get a better understanding on planet formation processes.
"Our work is suggestive, but we will need to observe a few more systems to show that indeed, for all coplanar systems similar to our own solar, the star's spin is aligned with the planets," said lead author Roberto Sanchis-Ojeda, MIT. "So far, we have the solar system and Kepler-30; a few more systems will be helpful to be completely sure."
The study was published online on July 25 in the journal Nature.
