Three planets, each with a mass 7 to 8 times that of Earth, have been discovered orbiting a nearby star that is only 54 light-years away at Lick Observatory and ground-based telescopes in Hawaii and Arizona.

 All three planets orbit their star at a distance closer than Mercury orbits the Sun, completing their orbits in just five, 15, and 24 days

The team discovered the new planets by detecting the wobble of the star HD 7924.

The Automated Planet Finder (APF) Telescope at Lick Observatory in California and W M Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii traced out the planets’ orbits over many years using the Doppler technique that has successfully found hundreds of mostly larger planets orbiting nearby stars.

 It took five years of additional observations at Keck Observatory and the year-and-a-half campaign by the APF Telescope to find the two additional planets orbiting HD 7924.