Astronomers say they have evidence for Earth-like planets orbiting a nearby star, making it more like our own Solar System than any yet discovered. The star, Vega, is one of the brightest in the sky, only 25 light years away. It is three times larger than our Sun and, at 350 million years old, much younger as well. Vega has a disc of dust circling it, and at least one large planet which could sweep debris aside allowing smaller worlds like Earth to exist. The analysis, by astronomers from the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, is published in The Astrophysical Journal, and is based on observations taken with one of the world's most sensitive cameras. The device, the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (Scuba), is attached to the James Clerk Maxwell radio telescope in Hawaii. Its detailed images of Vega and its environment confirm the presence of a disc of very cold dust (-180C) in orbit around the star. New computer modelling techniques show that structure seen in the disc can be best explained by a Neptune-like planet orbiting at a similar distance to Neptune in our own Solar System and having similar mass.
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