Marcy, who contributed to the paper, said: "The significance is marvelous, I think. We now know that our sun and its family of planets is not unusual. This discovery shows that our Milky Way contains billions of planetary systems, many as rich as our own solar system. We strongly suspect many of those planetary system harbor Earth-like planets."
To date, more than 260 planets have been discovered beyond our solar system.
"This work marks an exciting next step in the search for worlds like our own," said Michael Briley, an astronomer at the US National Science Foundation. "To go from the first detections of planets around sun-like stars to finding a full-fledged solar system with a planet in a habitable zone in 12 years is a testament to the years of hard work put in by these investigators."
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