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A suitcase-sized Canadian satellite whose funding has been eliminated by the Canadian Space Agency has co-discovered a new planet in another solar system.

The MOST space telescope, just 65 centimetres wide and 25 deep, also confirmed the planet is 2.5 times bigger than Earth, and is probably mostly water or ice.

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The discovery comes just as the Canadian Space Agency is winding up all funding for MOST, which must now operate as a rent-a-telescope.

It shares the discovery with NASA’s giant Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler and MOST (an acronym for Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars) are both in orbit.

“Maybe the real story is that a tiny Canadian space telescope, given up by the federal government as no longer worth $300,000 per year, can stand beside a $700-million NASA satellite in terms of producing frontier science,” astronomer Jaymie Matthews wrote. He’s from the University of British Columbia and is the chief scientist for MOST.