A team of scientists at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom have been studying an ancient star which has been named Kepler-444 after NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler mission. Around Kepler-444 are sighted five ancient rock worlds orbiting it. Since the proximity of the exoplanets to the star keep them out of the habitable zone, it is highly unlikely that there is any life present on them at present.

However when you consider that just how old this solar system is, all kinds of questions pop up. The age of the system is roughly established at 11.2 billion years old which is two and half times older than our own solar system’s age. Now the main point to ponder is that in all this time while the solar system developed, did life form there and move away when the orbits became  inhospitable?

Did that life survive more than 11 billion years somewhere else? In fact can life survive that long at all? And also if there is such an old solar system just being discovered by human beings, does that not mean that even older systems, with the possibility of surviving life on them them, can be discovered by researchers in the future? Makes for an interesting science project!