But with future telescopes, scientists say it may be possible to see past the blinding glare of the parent star to pick out just the faint light passing through a small world's atmosphere or even reflected off its surface.

BBC: Kepler telescope spies 'most Earth-like' worlds to date

Now that Dr van Paradijs's team, and another led by Kailash Sahu at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, have had time to look properly at the fading point of light, they have noticed a faint fuzz around it that looks as if it could be a galaxy playing host to a dramatic explosion.

ECONOMIST: Astronomy

To observe such a distant, faint object, scientists had to collect light through the telescopes over 37 hours, letting more and more light accumulate to see as deep as possible.

MSN: Newfound galaxy may be most distant ever seen

Subsequent observations with an infra-red telescope, which can see things that are too cool to shine with visible light, showed that it was a very faint star so faint that it is off the bottom of astronomers' scale of stellar classification.

ECONOMIST: Twinkle, twinkle, giant planet