Washington: The best most teenagers hope for from a summer internship is some work experience, beer money and perhaps a good reference.

Wolf Cukier, a 17-year-old high school student from New York, went a step further. He discovered a planet.

He was only on his third day as an intern at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre when he made the find.

Wolf Cukier, a 17-year-old high school student from New York, who discovered a new planet while interning at NASA. Credit:Screengrab/CBS

He had been trawling through satellite images flagged by members of the public where the brightness of a star seemed to temporarily dip.