The project has discovered extrasolar planets (artist's impression)

Astronomers from Queen's University Belfast have helped to discover 10 new planets.

The discovery will be announced later at the Royal Astronomical Society's largest ever National Astronomy Meeting, taking place at Queen's.

The extrasolar planets - which orbit around other stars - were found by an international team using cameras in the Canary Islands and South Africa.

Queen's astronomers designed and built the camera used in the find.

The Wide Area Search for Planets (SuperWasp) project uses two sets of cameras to watch for events known as transits, where a planet passes directly in front of a star and blocks out some of its light, so from the earth, the star temporarily appears a little fainter.

The cameras work as robots, surveying a large area of the sky at once.

Each night, astronomers have data from millions of stars which they check for transits. The transit method also allows scientists to deduce the size and mass of each planet.

Dr Don Pollacco from Queen's University will announce discoveries

Forty-five planets have now been discovered using the transit method, and since they were set up in 2004, the SuperWasp cameras have found 15 of them - making them the most successful discovery instruments in the world.

Announcing the latest results on Tuesday will be QUB's Dr Don Pollacco.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, he said: "SuperWasp is now a planet-finding production line and will revolutionise the detection of large planets and our understanding of how they were formed.

"It's a great triumph for European astronomers.

"Queen's and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council funded the first SuperWasp on La Palma, the camera was designed and built at Queen's."

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