Canberra, June 18 : A team of res

Canberra, June 16: Astronomers have discovered a batch of three “super-Earths” orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well, which suggests that Earth-like planets may be very common.

The discovery was made by Michel Mayor and colleagues from Switzerland’s Geneva Observatory, who used the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher or HARPS, a telescope at La Silla observatory in Chile, to find the planets.

According to a report in The Australian, the trio of planets orbit a star slightly less massive than our Sun, 42 light-years away towards the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations.

The planets are bigger than Earth - one is 4.2 times the mass, one is 6.7 times and the third is 9.4 times.

Canberra, June 16 : A new analysis of “hobbits”, an extinct race of tiny hominids, has suggested that they descended from the first tiny humans to leave Africa, and this might have happened some 2.

Canberra, June 14 : A new ecological study led by a University of Adelaide researcher would help identify species prone to extinction under environmental change, and species that are likely to beco

Canberra, June 13 : A biologist has suggested that due to lack of proper research, entire populations of unknown species may have already been wiped off the face of the Earth.

Canberra, June 9 : NASA has created a virtual spokesperson for the Phoenix mission to Mars, who would keep the public up to date with the latest Martian probe.