Leading Space Experts to Discuss the Search for Life Beyond Earth

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Jul 10, 2014, 12:25 ET

WASHINGTON, July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA Television will air a panel discussion of leading science and engineering experts on Monday, July 14, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. EDT, who will describe the scientific and technological roadmap that will lead to the discovery of potentially habitable worlds among the stars.

The public is invited to attend or view the event, which will take place in the Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street SW in Washington.

Space and ground observatories are cataloging and characterizing hundreds and what is expected to eventually be thousands of potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy. NASA space-based observatories are making unprecedented new discoveries. The agency's next step, the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb telescope), will continue to help scientists rewrite scientific textbooks after its scheduled launch in 2018.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will provide opening comments.

Panel participants include:

Ellen Stofan, NASA's chief scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington
John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator, NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington
John Mather, Nobel Laureate and Senior Project Scientist for the Webb telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
Sara Seager, MacArthur Fellow and Professor of Planetary Science and Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Dave Gallagher, director for Astronomy and Physics, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and Telescope Scientist for the Webb telescope