Comets spotted orbiting alien sun for first time: Icy body could give us a glimpse into how our solar system developed

Their passage through our solar system brings excitement to astronomers around the world when they come into view, but now comets have been spotted orbiting an alien star for the first time.

An international team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, have found evidence of icy comets circling a nearby star similar to our own sun.

The discovery could help to provide new knowledge of how our own solar system developed by studying the debris orbiting the star, which is 160 light years away.

An international team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, have found evidence of ice and comets circling a nearby sun-like star, located 160 light years away in the Painter constellation

The researchers used data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) - a state-of-the-art telescope in Chile - to study light from some of the coldest objects in the Universe. 

It was able to pick up signals of very low levels of carbon monoxide gas around the star, which has the catchy name HD 181327, in amounts similar to the comets in our own solar system.

The study, which is due to be presented at an astronomy conference in Chile, is the first step in establishing the properties of comet clouds around sun-like starts just after the time of their birth.

The research used data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) - a state-of-the-art telescope - to study light from some of the coldest objects in the Universe. ALMA can be found in the Atacama desert of northern Chile

The star in this study, HD 181327, as pictured from a NASA Hubble Space Telescope visible-light survey of the architecture of debris systems around young stars. Hubble's sharp view uncovers an unexpected diversity and complexity in the structures

The star in the study was found to have a mass about 30 per cent greater than the sun and in the Painter constellation.

The system is about 23 million years old, which is very young in comparison to our solar system, which is 4.6 billion years old.

Sebastián Marino, who lead the study, said 'Young systems such as this one are very active, with comets and asteroids slamming into each other and into planets.

The system has a similar ice composition to our own, so it's a good one to study in order to learn what our solar system looked like early in its existence.'

Using ALMA, the astronomers observed the star, which is surrounded by a ring of dust caused by the collisions of comets, asteroids and other bodies. 

Scientists believe the star is likely to have planets orbiting around it, but they are impossible to detect using the telescopes available.

'Assuming there are planets orbiting this star, they would likely have already formed, but the only way to see them would be through direct imaging, which at the moment can only be used for very large planets like Jupiter,' said co-author Luca Matrà.

An image taken using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) shows the ring of comets around the alien star

Comets can typically be found in the outer reaches of our solar system, but become most clearly visible when they visit the inner regions, such as Comet ISON, pictured nine days before its close encounter with the sun in 2013

The researchers used ALMA to look for the presence of gas, since the collisions which caused the dust ring to form should also cause the release of gas.

Previous studies have detected such gas, but only around a few stars which are all substantially more massive than the sun. 

Pushing ALMA to its limit, the team using simulations to model the composition of the system, allowing ALMA to detect very low levels of carbon monoxide gas. 

'The amount of gas we detected is analogous to a 200 kilometre diameter ice ball, which is impressive considering how far away the star is,' said Matrà. 

'It's amazing that we can do this with exoplanetary systems now.'