Yesterday, I read a post on the SETI blog at scienceblogs explaining about the NASA's Kepler project which searches for new planets. They take an image of a star and then detect tiny changes in the light produced. Reductions potentially indicate planets. To confirm their sightings, they need to detect the reduction again which may take years as the planet orbits the star. They can work out the time it takes the planet to orbit, and distance from, the star and its size and mass.
An incredible image showing all the potential planets to date can be found here.
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