A team of European astronomers led by Michel Mayor, from Geneva Observatory, has reported at a conference in Nantes that it has found numerous planets that have an Earth-like size. However, all the planets are orbiting their stars in less than 80 days, making them too hot to sustain life.

The study used an improved method of detecting planets, which is based on measuring the differences that appear in the wavelengths of the light that is emitted by the star that the planets orbit. The differences in wavelengths appear as the relative speed of the star changes because of the gravitational interaction with the planets.

If until now only very large planets, like Jupiter or Saturn could have been found, the new method allows the detection of smaller planets also, all thanks to the increased sensitivity of the sensors it uses.

The measuring device is located at the European Southern Observatory La Silla Observatory in the Chilean desert. The system is so sensitive that, after it has been calibrated, it was locked in a room in the observatory and nobody is allowed to enter.

The astronomers have predicted that about one third of all known stars can have planets about the size of Earth that are orbiting them. Even though the smallest of the planets that were discovered during the study is about 7 times bigger than our planet, it is consider to be in the same category as Earth, mass-wise.

The European team has said that its findings could lay the foundations for future studies that will be able to discover more and more new planets, some of them being able to sustain life as we know it.