Already established as a formidable force in planet finding, the European Southern Obervatory has now found another 32 planets orbiting stars outside of our own Solar system. This brings the total numebr of planets discovered since the first was found in 1988, to over 400.

Since Kepler was launched I was expecting the next big announcement to come from NASA, but its nice to know that NASA are not the only game in town.

The news comes from the team responsible for the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) who have discovered approximates 20% of all exoplanets to date using what is called the radial velocity of the “wobble” method. This measures the back and forward motion of the star as it is pulled slightly the gravity of the planets orbiting it.  The smallest of the planets are still huge, approximate the size of Neptune, and they are orbiting very close to their star (about 1/20 of the distance of the earths orbit).

Since we cannot see the planets, we of course have the mandatory artists impression . Six of the planets were found around a star named  Gliese 667  which is actually a triple star system. In the image below they show the two small companion stars in the distance.

We are still waiting on the first Earth like planet…..

Credit: ESO - Artists Impression: Gliese 667 System