Finding six new planets around a single star represents an impressive haul. Nasa is calling it the best find since the first so-called ‘exoplanet’ was discovered 16 years ago. It might not be the most populated solar system yet found - six or possibly seven planets have been found in a rival system, but it's the nature of this new discovery which is getting the astronomers scratching their heads in wonder.

Five of the six planets are crammed tightly in around the Kepler-11 star, with orbits of between just ten and 47 days. That means they're all super hot, but the data suggests they're also made mostly of gas.

That's strange, because small hot planets this close in should have been ripped asunder by their parent star in their formative years, say the scientists. One possible explanation is that the planets started out bigger and further out and were slowly dragged into tighter orbits, as part of a contracting belt of dust and asteroids.

Neil Bowdler, BBC News

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Vocabulary

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impressive

hugely admirable

haul

large group of items which have been gathered or collected at the same time

so-called

commonly named

exoplanet

a planet which is outside the Earth's solar system (the series of planets which goes around our Sun)

scratching their heads

intrigued or puzzled by something

crammed

here, forced together into a small space

ripped asunder

separated violently into two or more parts (used in very dramatic circumstances)

formative years

here, a period in a planet's existence during which it is still being shaped into its final form

dragged

pulled violently

contracting

shrinking or pulling inwards