Rocky planets ahoy, Kapteyn! Two exoplanets have been discovered orbiting a red dwarf called Kapteyn's star, and one of those worlds may be ripe for life. Extrapolating from the age of the star, these planets are about 11.5 billion years old – only 2 billion years younger than the universe itself.
Identified in the late 1800s and named for its Dutch discoverer, Kapteyn's star was actually born in another galaxy. This dwarf galaxy was long ago pulled apart and absorbed as it got near our massive Milky Way galaxy. A cluster of very old stars about 16,000 light years away, known as Omega Centauri, is thought to make up the core of the devoured galaxy.
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