NASA Discovers New Solar System Around Star Kepler-11

An artist's impression of the Kepler-11 planetary system. Photograph: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech/T Pyle/Nature Magazine.

The BBC and Guardian are reporting that NASA has used the Kepler telescope to find a new solar system with six planets close to their sun:

Astronomers have discovered a planetary system made up of six planets orbiting a Sun-like star that is more than 2,000 light years from Earth. It is the largest number of planets found so far around a single star. More than 100 planets have been seen outside our solar system, but most are Jupiter-like gas giants, and almost all are in single-planet systems. Jack Lissauer, a scientist at Nasa's Ames research centre in California and a lead author on a paper published tomorrow in the journal Nature, said that the Kepler-11 finding was "the biggest thing in exoplanets since the discovery of 51 Pegasi B, the first exoplanet, back in 1995".

A list of papers (with links to texts) on the Kepler telescope is here. See more here and here. The telescope is getting ever closer to discovering the so-called 'holy grail' of astronomy - finding an Earth-like planet in a Goldilocks zone capable of sustaining life.