ESA clears UK mission to seek distant planets

A mission to search for planets outside the solar system and to discover how distant stars work has won the go-ahead from the European Space Agency.

The Eddington mission, named after the British astronomer Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, will be led by Ian Roxburgh, professor of astronomy at Queen Mary, University of London. The satellite will use four telescopes to hunt for planets by looking for subtle variations in the light from more than 100,000 stars.