A team of scientists have recently discovered a young planetary system, which according to them can help them better understand as to how our own solar system looked like billions of years ago.

An international team of astronomers, including University of Cambridge researchers using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) at the Gemini South telescope in Chile, identified a disc-shaped bright ring of dust around a star slightly massive than the Sun.

The star around which the disc-shaped bright ring of dust was found was said to be located almost 360 light-years away in the Centaurus constellation.

Researchers stated that the disc is located between almost 37 and 55 astronomical units (3.4 and 5.1 billion miles) from its host star, which is almost the same distance as the solar system's Kuiper Belt is from the Sun.

The brightness of the disc is also found to be constant with a wide range of dust compositions including the silicates and ice present in the Kuiper Belt.

The Kuiper Belt lies just beyond Neptune. It contains several thousands of small icy bodies that are left over from the formation of the solar system more than four billion years ago.

The objects in Kuiper Belt range in size from specks of debris dust, all the way up to moon-size objects like Pluto, which was used to be classified as a planet, but has now been reclassified as a dwarf planet.

Researchers by using model of how planets shape a debris disc found that eccentric versions of the giant planets in the outer solar system could explain the observed properties of the ring.

Lead investigator Thayne Currie said that it was almost like looking at the outer solar system when it was a toddler.

Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan of Cambridge said their discovery of a near-twin of the Kuiper Belt provides straight evidence that the planetary birth environment of the solar system may not be uncommon.