Scientists and amateurs find new solar system

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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.

They said technique, called microlensing, shows promise for finding many more stars, perhaps with Earthlike planets orbiting them.

"We found a solar system that looks like a scaled-down analog of our solar system," Scott Gaudi of Ohio State University, who led the study, told reporters.

The new solar system, described in Friday's issue of the journal Science, has two planets of similar size and orbit to Jupiter and Saturn. It is the first time microlensing has been used to find two planets orbiting a single star.

The star is smaller, dimmer and fainter than our sun and the two planets are less massive than Jupiter and Saturn, but orbit at distances similar to the distances that Jupiter and Saturn orbit our own sun. "So it looks like a scale model of our solar system," Gaudi said.

The planets were detected orbiting a star, called OGLE-2006-BLG-109L, 5,000 light-years away from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, or about 6 trillion miles.

The team of astronomers from 11 countries used a technique called microlensing to spot the planets.

"Microlensing works by using the gravity of the star and the planet to bend and focus light rays from a star behind it," Gaudi said. "If you are looking at one star and another passes in the foreground (gravity from the front star) will focus and bend light rays. That causes the background star to be magnified," he added.