A team of astronomers has measured the passing of a super-Earth in front of a bright, nearby Sun-like star using a ground-based telescope for the first time. Exoplanet 55 Cancri e, some 40 light-years away, is about twice as big and eight times as massive as the Earth.

Asteroid 2011 UW158 passes just 6.4 lunar distances (1.53 million miles) miles from Earth at 3:37pm BST today. The 300 metre by 600 metre body was imaged in detail by radar during observations made with the Arecibo Observatory on 14 July, revealing that it is not a typical asteroid.

After walking away from a previously planned joint mission to Jupiter, NASA has asked the European Space Agency if it can furnish a lander or ice-penetrating probe for a rejuvenated U.S.-led robotic spacecraft to visit Jupiter’s moon Europa.