Screaming Penguin

8 new expolanets have been discovered by Swiss astronomers. These planets are outside our solar system (hence exo-planets) and were discovered using a technique that searches for gravitational orbit deviations in a particular known star (to find planets that orbit the star, the "radial velocity" technique.) These astronomers have not only discovered these new planets but potentially quite a few more (another area looks promising.) This brings to "about" 40 the number of exoplanets we know about. (Note that several of the new planets may actually be brown dwarf stars rather than planets.) See the BBC article for further details.   8 new planets discovered! : BBC SciTech