Four new exoplanets to start off the new year!

Artist's conception of a "hot Jupiter" orbiting close to its star. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)

It’s only a few days into 2012 and already some new exoplanet discoveries have been announced. As 2011 ended, there were a total of 716 confirmed exoplanets and 2,326 planetary candidates, found by both orbiting space telescopes like Kepler and ground-based observatories. The pace of new discoveries has accelerated enormously in the past few years. Now there are four more confirmed exoplanets to add to the list…

See Universe Today for the full article.