Astronomers using the 97.5 inch Nordic Optical Telescope on the island of La Palma, Spain have spotted a super-Earth transit.

Scientists saw the exoplanet "55 Cancri e" transiting or passing between its host star and the Earth for the first time.

The star is located about 40 light years away from us and is sometimes visible to our naked eyes. The exoplanet managed to reduce the brightness of the star by just 0.05 percent. Previous events like this can only be observed using telescopes in space.

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Exoplanet 55 Cancri e has a mass about 7.8 times that of the Earth's while its diameter is twice the Earth's. Its temperature reaches 1,700 Celsius on the dayside. This is hot enough to melt metal.

"Our observations show that we can detect the transits of small planets around Sun-like stars using ground-based telescopes. This is especially important because upcoming space missions such as Tess and Plato should find many small planets around bright stars," said study lead author Ernst de Mooij from Queen's University Belfast in the United Kingdom.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is set to launch by 2017. Its two-year mission will see it hunting for worlds orbiting alien suns.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is also preparing to send the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) observatory into space in 2025 to discover other planets outside the solar system.

Astronomers said space telescopes can make the initial discovery of planets while ground-based telescopes can conduct follow-up research for further details.

The observations are important because it can help upcoming space missions find small planets around bright stars.

TagsPlanet 55 Cancri e, exoplanet, ground-based telescope, super-Earth transit, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars, Star, space exploration, solar system