17 Apr 2015

The system Kepler-444 formed when the Milky Way galaxy was a youthful two billion years old. The planets were detected from the dimming that occurs when they transit the disc of their parent star, as shown in this artist's conception.

The tightly packed system is home to five planets that range in size, the smallest comparable to the size of Mercury and the largest to Venus. All five planets orbit their sun-like star in less than ten days, which makes their orbits much closer than Mercury's sweltering 88-day orbit around the sun.