Ten New Extrasolar Planets Outside Our Solar System

April 2, 2008 11:56 a.m. EST

Santa Barbara, CA (AHN) - An international team of astronomers has confirmed the existence of ten new planets in orbit around other stars (known as extrasolar planets) that were discovered using a new technique.

The team's leader, Dr. Don Pollacco of Queen's University Belfast, will announce the findings in his talk at the Royal Astronomical Society's national astronomy meeting on Wednesday.

The new technique is called "SuperWASP," for Wide Area Search for Planets. It uses robotic cameras located in the Canary Islands and South Africa to observe planets as they pass in front of their parent star.

Each possible planet found is then observed by astronomers working at the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, the Swiss Euler Telescope in Chile and the Observatoire de Haute Provence in southern France, who use precision instruments to confirm or reject the discovery.

The planets appear to blink as they pass in front of the star. In order to detect the planet that is blocking out the light, star light is dimmed, a process known as the "transit method". This technique also allows scientists to deduce the size and mass of each planet.

The ten recent planets discovered with SuperWASP have masses between half the size of Jupiter to more than eight times the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.