Canadian William Gadoury, 15, has discovered an ancient Maya city in the Yucatan jungle without leaving home while reviewing satellite images on his computer, local media report.
Gadoury, who admits being fascinated by the Maya civilisation, discovered that the location of bright stars in various constellations corresponded to the location of 117 known Maya cities.
The correlation between the constellations and Maya cities is an observation never before made by archaeologists and scientists studying the Mesoamerican civilisation, which fell apart before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.
Gadoury noticed that two of the stars in a certain three-star constellation corresponded with two known cities but the third star did not have a known counterpart city, and so he began investigating if the third star could also have a match.
The teen began studying satellite images he had requested from the Canadian Space Agency until he found what appeared to be human-built structures overgrown by foliage deep in the Yucatan jungle in southeastern Mexico.
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The CSA, NASA and Japan's space agency have all verified that the structures discovered by Gadoury include a pyramid and about 30 buildings of what seems to be one of the Maya civilisation's largest cities.
Gadoury has named the newly discovered city K'aak Chi, which means "Mouth of fire" in the Maya language.
