GENEVA – Scientists say they’ve identified a sun-like star with as many as seven planets – including one that might be the smallest ever found outside the solar system.

If confirmed, the planetary system around HD 10180, a star more than 100 light-years distant, would be the richest ever discovered. One astronomer says it’s part of a growing body of evidence that the universe is full of planets – and that several could be similar to our own.

Although most of the planets identified are large – about 13 to 25 times the mass of our home – those behind the discovery, announced Tuesday at an international conference in France, say they’re nearly certain they’ve identified one only 1.4 times the size of Earth.

Planets found outside the solar system are called exoplanets, and this would be the smallest one ever spotted.

Scientists have been successfully hunting exoplanets for about 15 years, and they’ve now cataloged about 450. But most finds have been limited to one or two or three planets per star, usually gargantuan balls of gas similar to Jupiter or Saturn.

But at up to seven planets, the new discovery nearly matches our own solar system, which counts eight.

Christophe Lovis of Geneva University, one of the scientists behind the find, said the first five were most comparable to Neptune.

“They are made essentially of rocks and ice. They have a solid core. But on top of that is a layer of gas, of hydrogen and helium most likely,” he said. “They are probably not habitable.”

The sixth is possibly a Saturn-like planet, while the seventh, the smallest, would be so close to its star that its “year” would take just over a day.

Lovis and his team haven’t been able to observe the planets directly, which is typical.

The find was made by researchers from Switzerland, France, Germany and Portugal and has been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.