Scientists have taken the first direct picture of a solarsystem that is strikingly similar to our own. The new image shows two hugeexoplanets orbiting a young, sun-like star about 300 light-years away. It looksmore like a family portrait.

The image was captured with the Very Large Telescope of theEuropean Southern Observatory, which is located in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Thenewly discovered solar system will aid astronomers in better understanding howour solar system developed and evolved. The has been published in TheAstrophysical Journal Letters.

The star, identified as TYC 8998-760-1 and found in theSouthern constellation Musca, is only 17 million years old, making it a “veryyoung version of our own sun,” according to researchers. In comparison, the sunis 4.6 billion years old.

Both planets orbiting the star, named TYC 8998-760-1b andTYC 8998-760-1c, are considered to be gas giants, meaning they are mostly madeup of hydrogen and helium. They are, however, much further away from their hoststar than our gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, at 160 and 320 times the Earth-sundistances, respectively. They’re also a lot heavier than our solar system’s gasgiants.

The two planets, which appear as two bright points of lightin the pH๏τograph, are seen orbiting their parent star in the top left corner.They still light brightly enough to be observed from Earth since they formed sorecently.

It’s the first time astronomers have discovered multipleplanets around a star comparable to our sun. Only two other systems like ourshave ever been discovered, both with stars that are completely different fromours.a