Astronomers have found 32 new planets outside our solar system with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) 3.6-metre telescope. The number of known exoplanets is now at 406, and HARPS itself has discovered more than 75 exoplanets in 30 different planetary systems. Included in this most recent batch are several low-mass planets – so-called "Super Earths" about the size of Neptune. The image above is an artist's impression of a planet discovered that is 6 times the mass of Earth, which circles the low-mass host star, Gliese 667 C, at a distance equal to only 1/20th of the Earth-Sun distance. Two other planets were discovered previously around this star."HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds," said ESO astronomer Stéphane Udry. "We have now completed our initial five-year program, which has succeeded well beyond our expectations."No Earth-like planets were discovered in this group that was announced at an exoplanet conference in Portugal.
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