Astronomers from The University of Texas at Austin announced that an international team of scientists has discovered a star born 4.5 billion years ago from the same cloud of gas as our sun, only it's a little bigger and a little hotter at its surface.

Calling it the Sun's "long-lost brother", the solar sibling has the same chemical composition as our sun, leading an international team of researchers to believe that the two stars were born at the same time in the same stellar nursery.

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Ivan Ramirez, team leader of astronomers from the University of Texas at Austin, said the discovery will help mankind understand why the solar system exists and why Earth was formed. 

Ramirez said stars with different compositions were born in different clusters while those that have the exact chemical fingerprints were born in the same place.  

"We want to know where we were born," Ramirez said.

Scientists also said there is a small, but not totally zero chance that the newly-discovered star, believed to be Sun's brother, could also host planets that contain life.

Sun's long-lost brother, scientifically known as HD 162826 is 15 percent bigger than the star located in the center of our solar system, and finds its place 110 light years away in constellation Hercules. Astronomers said the said star can be viewed using low-power binoculars.

A previous scientific probe showed that the star does not have any massive planets circling around it but scientists said there could be smaller terrestrial planets that were not seen during the previous studies.

The solar sibling was identified by several international teams searching for star similar to the Sun. There were 30 possible candidates but the HD 162826 was considered as most promising. The star was studied through a high-resolution spectroscopy.

Astronomers also based their conclusion that the star was the Sun's long-lost brother from orbital information and various data they gathered during their investigation. A detailed report about the HD 162826 is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

TagsSun's Brother, Sun Discover, New Sun Discovered, Sun's Sibling Discovered, Astronomers Find Sun's Brother