The oldest exoplanetary star-system has been discovered by Kepler. The system orbiting Kepler 444 was older,when the Sun first shone light, than the Earth is today.
The 5 Earth sized planets orbiting the 11 billion year old star tells us that there are more planets in the Milky Way than we thought; planets started forming when our galaxy was young, and although those planets are way too close to their star, nothing stopped the formation of objects in the habitable zone of the first stars.
Planets are now confirmed as a standard feature of the Universe and not an exception. So where is everybody? Is intelligent life so fragile that it can’t survive long enough to shout its existence into the stars? Perhaps. But this discovery tell us that being alone in the universe is much more unlikely now.
You can read the paper here: