Astronomers and amateur stargazers have used an unusual technique to find a solar system that closely resembles our own and say it may be a new and more productive way to scour the universe for planets and life.
Two newly discovered planets: one resembling Jupiter (middle) and one resembling Saturn (middle right). Both planets orbit a star that is about half the size of our sun. The light from a more distant star (upper right) made the discovery possible, as it brightened and dimmed through a phenomenon called gravitational microlensing. It is the first time such microlensing has been used to find two planets orbiting a single star
the microlensing technique shows promise for finding many more stars, perhaps with Earth-like planets
The planets were detected orbiting a star, called OGLE-2006-BLG-109L, which is 5000 light-years away from Earth.
A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, or about 10 trillion kilometres.
it looks like a scale model of our solar system
clipped from: www.abc.net.au 