Scientists have discovered a planet with mild, Earth-like temperatures that could support life only 13 years away.
Orbiting Kapteyn's star, the planet came from another galaxy and became part of the Milky Way after its previous galaxy was torn to shreds by our own, the Daily Mail reported.
The star's planets may be 11.5 billion years old, which would be more than twice the Earth's estimated age, according to astronomers' calculations.
About five times heavier than Earth, the planet Kapteyn b orbits its star in a zone where temperatures are mild enough to maintain water on the world's surface.
Publishing their findings in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters, researchers said the discovery hints at a plenitude of planets that have the conditions to sustain water and support life.
"Finding a stable planetary system with a potentially habitable planet orbiting one of the very nearest stars in the sky is mind-blowing," said study co-author Dr. Pamela Arriagada of the Carnegie Institution, as quoted by the Daily Mail.
"This is one more piece of evidence that nearly all stars have planets, and that potentially habitable planets in our galaxy are as common as grains of sand on a beach," Arriagada said.
Using special instruments on telescopes in Chile and Hawaii, astronomers discovered the new worlds by measuring tiny movements of the star that resulted from the planets' gravitational pull.
"We were surprised to find planets orbiting Kapteyn's star," said Dr. Guillem Anglada-Escude from Queen Mary University of London, who worked on the study, as quoted by the Daily Mail. "Previous data showed some moderate excess of variability, so we were looking for very short period planets when the new signals showed up loud and clear."
See Now: OnePlus 6: How Different Will It Be From OnePlus 5?
