Studies showed that this nearby system of planets has a design that is strangely similar to our own solar system.

The star Epsilon Eridani, or eps Eri for short, is 10.5 light-years away in the southern hemisphere of the constellation Eridanus. It is the closest star to the sun that has a planet system around it. It is a very important place to study how planets form around stars like our sun.

With the new SOFIA pictures, Kate Su of the University of Arizona and her team of researchers were able to find this solar system that is so similar to our own that it is crazy.

Su said, “The high spatial resolution of SOFIA, combined with the unique wavelength coverage and impressive dynamic range of the FORCAST camera, let us see the warm emission around eps Eri. This confirmed the model that said the warm material was near the orbit of the Jovian planet.”

Also, the sheet of dust from the outer zone needs to be stopped by an object with the mass of a planet, just like Neptune does in our solar system. It’s amazing that eps Eri, a solar system that is much younger than ours, is put together the same way ours is.