NASA's Spritzer space telescope has detected signs of a comet storm in a nearby solar system that is similar to how our own solar system developed several billion years ago.

The Spritzer space telescope observed a band of dust around the Eta Corvi star system located 60 light years away. The dust strongly matches the chemical makeup of an obliterated giant comet and led scientists to believe that icy comets could be bombarding the star system.

"The dust is located close enough to Eta Corvi that Earth-like worlds could exist, suggesting a collision took place between a planet and one or more comets," NASA states in a release.

The comet bombardment that Eta Corvi is experiencing is similar to a time period in our solar system's history known as the "Late Heavy Bombardment" which is thought to be a time when water and other life forming elements were brought to Earth by comets.

"We believe we have direct evidence for an ongoing Late Heavy Bombardment in the nearby star system Eta Corvi, occurring about the same time as in our solar system," said Carey Lisse, senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and lead author of the paper that describes the findings.

This type of heavy comet bombardment is of particular interest to astronomers because it is thought that comets and other icy objects pummeled the inner planets that brought the life-giving elements to Earth.

"Interestingly, we see the beginning of life on Earth at the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment," Lisse said in a press briefing last Wednesday.

Astronomers haven't been able to detect a planet in the Eta Corvi system that is undergoing the comet assault but they concluded that the comet shattered after impacting something big and rocky. They estimate that the cosmic body would have to be a planet roughly the size of Earth or smaller, orbiting Eta Corvi at three times the distance Earth orbits the Sun which would still be in the habitable zone because Eta Corvi is 5 times brighter than the Sun.

Another similarity to our Solar system is that the comet could have come from Eta Corvi's version of our own Kuiper Belt, the region that contains many comet bodies.

Lisse urges planet hunters to study the Eta Corvi system to find more evidence about the study and the impact of comets on developing star systems.

"We think the Eta Corvi system should be studied in detail to learn more about the rain of impacting comets and other objects that may have started life on our own planet," Lisse said.