Astronomers from eleven countries including Korea and New Zealand have discovered two planets near a star located five-thousand light years from Earth using gravitational lensing.

Science magazine reports the 69-member team led by Ohio State University Professor Scott Gaudi said the two planets, similar in size and orbit to Jupiter and Saturn, circle a star in the constellation Sagittarius near the center of the galaxy. The team says the new solar system orbiting the star OGLE-2006-BLG-109L is like a miniature version of our solar system.

More than 250 extrasolar planets have been discovered so far but only four using gravitational lensing. With this technique, the reflections of objects are observed not the objects directly.

The Korea Science and Engineering Foundation and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute participated in the study.