New planet discovered

Astronomers have discovered a new planet about the same size as Jupiter, it was announced today.

The planet, named CoRot-Exo-4b, was spotted by a European space mission.

It forms part of the unicorn constellation and lies about 3,000 light years from our solar system.

Astronomers believe it is mostly made up of gas and has a similar composition to Jupiter.

The planet is currently not visible from Earth but will come back into view in autumn.

It is slightly larger than the sun, so a year lasts 9.2 days on the planet, which is the time it takes to orbit its star.

However, scientists said paying a visit to the planet would be out of the question. As well as being unbearably hot and made of gas, it is simply too far away.

Even if scientists succeeded in building a spacecraft that could travel at light-speed, the journey would take 3,000 years.

The discovery was announced at an international astronomy conference at the University of St Andrews today.

The mission that made the discovery is called CoRot and was launched in December 2006 with the objective of tracking down planets outside our solar system.

It is led by the French space agency CNES, but includes contributions from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Brazil and the European Space Agency.

St Andrews astronomer Dr Martin Dominik said: “Within less than 15 years, the count of planets orbiting stars other than the sun has risen from none to over 300.

“The new findings provide reason for the scientists currently gathering in St Andrews to revise their theories.”