(CNN) — Thirty-two planets have been discovered outside Earth’s solar system through the use of a high-precision instrument installed at a Chilean telescope, an international team announced Monday.


“The existence of the so-called exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — was announced at the European Southern Observatory/Center for Astrophysics, University of Porto conference in Porto, Portugal, according to a statement issued by the observatory,” reports CNN.com.

“The announcement was made by a consortium of international researchers, headed by the Geneva Observatory, who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS. The device can detect slight wobbles of stars as they respond to tugs from exoplanets’ gravity. That tactic, known as the radial velocity method, “has been the most prolific method in the search for exoplanets,” according to the European Southern Observatory statement,” reports CNN.com.

The instrument detects movements as small as 3.5 km/hr (2.1 mph), a slow walking pace, the observatory said.

With the discovery, the tally of new exoplanets found by HARPS is now at 75, out of about 400 known exoplanets, the organization said, “cementing HARPS’s position as the world’s foremost exoplanet hunter.” The 75 planets are in 30 planetary systems, the European Southern Observatory said.

“HARPS has also boosted the discovery of so-called super-Earths — planets with a mass a few times that of Earth. Of the 28 super-Earths known, HARPS facilitated the discovery of 24, the European Southern Observatory statement said. Most reside in multiplanet systems, with up to five planets per system,” reports CNN.com.

Although only 32 were announced Monday, the team knows of many more exoplanets, although more observation is needed before they are formally announced and papers are written about them. “We have tons of them,” Udry said.

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