NASA to Announce Latest Kepler Discoveries During Media Teleconference

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May 04, 2016, 03:31 ET

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a news teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Tuesday, May 10 to announce the latest discoveries made by its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope.

The briefing participants are:

Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington
Timothy Morton, associate research scholar at Princeton University in New Jersey
Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California
Charlie Sobeck, Kepler/K2 mission manager at Ames

For dial-in information, media must e-mail their name, affiliation and telephone number to Felicia Chou at [email protected] no later than 11 a.m. Tuesday. Questions can be submitted on Twitter during the teleconference using the hashtag #askNASA.

The teleconference audio and visuals will be streamed live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

When Kepler was launched in March 2009, scientists did not know how common planets were outside our solar system. Thanks to Kepler's treasure trove of discoveries, astronomers now believe there may be at least one planet orbiting every star in the sky.

Kepler completed its prime mission in 2012, and collected data for an additional year in an extended mission. In 2014, the spacecraft began a new extended mission called K2. K2 continues the search for exoplanets while introducing new research opportunities to study young stars, supernovae and other cosmic phenomenon.

For more information about NASA's Kepler mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

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SOURCE NASA