Automated process finds three super-Earths in our neighborhood - a new way to hunt for alien planets

Using three state of the art ground-based telescopes, a team of astronomers has identified three super-Earth exoplanets that are seven to eight times as massive as our own planet and orbit their parent star closer than Mercury orbits the sun. What's hot about the findings - apart from the planet's likely scorching surface - is that these were made using a novel automated approach, in which one telescope called the Automated Planet Finder (APF) Telescope at Lick Observatory in California was programmed to scour the night's sky and look for signs of nearby alien planets. These three planets are just the beginning of a new process that hopefully will return hundreds of planets in our neighborhood, all without the need for human supervision.