Astronomy student Kevin Apps has done it again and helped discover three more planets.

Last year we reported how he became the first British astronomer to identify a new planet.

The 26-year-old University of Sussex undergraduate, from Three Bridges, then uncovered six new planets last month.

Now he has found three more planets orbiting distant stars using the British-funded Anglo Australian Telescope in New South Wales, Australia.

The gadget has been used to monitor 200 stars in the southern sky since 1998 and it is able to detect much smaller planets than other telescopes.

A spokesman for the University of Sussex said: "Of the three planets, the smallest lies closer to its parent star than Mercury does to the Sun.

"The second has an orbit more like the Earth's and the third is a large Jupiter-like planet."

Mr Apps said: "This discovery is obviously very good for my career."

He said he hopes to begin postgraduate studies in the United States in the coming years.

His discoveries have been made as part of a team which includes world-famous planet hunters Steven Vogt, Geoff Marcy and Paul Butler.