NASA To Announce New Planetary Discoveries
WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a news briefing at 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Feb. 2, to announce the Kepler mission's latest findings about planets outside our solar system. The briefing will be held in the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St S.W. in Washington and carried live on NASA Television and the agency's website at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets
in or near the "habitable zone," the region in a planetary system
where liquid water can exist on the surface of the orbiting planet.
Although additional observations will be needed over time to achieve
that milestone, Kepler is detecting planets and planet candidates
with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help us better
understand our place in the galaxy.
The news conference will follow the scheduled release of Kepler
mission science data on Feb. 1. The data release will update the
number of planet candidates and is based on observations conducted
between May 2 and Sept. 17, 2009.
Participants are:
-- Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist, NASA Headquarters,
Washington
-- William Borucki, Kepler Science principal investigator, NASA's Ames
Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
-- Jack Lissauer, Kepler co-investigator and planetary scientist, Ames
-- Debra Fischer, professor of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven,
Conn.
Reporters also may ask questions from participating NASA field centers
or by phone. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must send
their name, affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole by e-mail
at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov by noon EST on Feb. 1.
For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the Feb. 1
data release, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/kepler
Source: NASA
