Armchair astronomers have already helped classify galaxies seen by Hubble, the main orbiting telescope of America's space agency, NASA. They have also looked for interesting asteroids, and kept an eye out for solar storms.

ECONOMIST: Amateur astronomers join the ranks of the planet hunters

It stares at a fixed patch of sky, watching a field of more than 150, 000 stars for the tiny dips in starlight that occur if an orbiting planet passes between a star and the telescope.

BBC: Exoplanets near red dwarfs suggest another Earth nearer

On 3 November, NASA and the European Space Agency announced that the Hubble Space Telescope had captured the first visible-light snapshot of a planet orbiting another star.

UNESCO: Open Access to Scientific Information

Earlier this month, astronomers using the Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network announced the discovery of four more massive worlds, each one orbiting a separate star.

WSJ: Galaxy Hosts 100 Billion Planets, in New Estimate

HARPS, which sits on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile, allows researchers to detect the tiny gravitational wobbles that orbiting planets induce in their parent stars.

MSN: Senior writer

Earlier this month, astronomers using the Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network announced the discovery of four more massive alien worlds, each one orbiting a separate star.

WSJ: Galaxy Hosts 100 Billion Planets, in New Estimate