Astronomers have found a star that is more like our own Sun than any yet observed, laying to rest any argument that our star is unique in the universe.

The star, HIP 56948, is about 200 million light years away, and may be a billion years older than our own sun. There's no sign yet of large, close Jupiter-like planets around it - but stay tuned, maybe we'll get reruns of alien "I Love Lucy" episodes if we point our SETI systems at it just right.

Only three "solar twins" have been previously found; but while all three had evinced many similarities, they all had several times more lithium than our own sun. HIP 56948, by contrast, has the same low levels as the Sun.

Because of the difficulty in finding exact twins of the Sun, some astronomers had (according to this press release) believed that our solar system was perhaps unique. Simple statistics would of course argue strenuously against this; but luckily, this finding simply puts the kibosh on any such surmise.

The star was discovered by Peruvian astronomers Jorge Melendez of the Australian National University and Ivan Ramirez of the University of Texas at Austin, using the Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory.