Oldest Known Alien Planets —Born at Dawn of Universe 8-Billion Years Earlier than Earth

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Which makes them approximately eight-billion years older than Earth. The two huge Jupiter-sized planets found orbiting a star 375 light-years away, that will soon transform into a red giant (image above), are the oldest alien worlds yet discovered, according to scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy. “The Milky Way itself was not completely formed yet,” said study leader Johny Setiawan. During a survey using radial velocity, in which astronomers watch for periodic wobbles in a star’s light due to the gravitational tugs of orbiting worlds, Setiawan and colleagues found the signatures of the two planets orbiting the star, dubbed HIP 11952. 

At an estimated age of 12.8 billion years, the host star—and thus the planets—most likely formed at the dawn of the universe, less than a billion years after the big bang.

(via dailygalaxy)