NASA to make announcement on new discovery from planet-hunting mission

NASA could be about to make a significant announcement regarding its latest investigation into life outside our solar system.

The space agency has called a press conference this Thursday to announce a new discovery by its Kepler space telescope, which has been searching for habitable planets and alien life since 2009.

Artist’s depiction of Kepler 22b, a planet within the habitable zone of a type G star about 600 light years from Earth

“The discovery was made by researchers using machine learning from Google”, said NASA in a press release.

“Machine learning is an approach to artificial intelligence and demonstrates new ways of analysing Kepler data.”

While its primary mission is to look for exoplanets (a planet which orbits a star outside our solar system), it is also tasked with “studying young stars, supernovae and other cosmic phenomena”, according to NASA.

However, its decision to call a press conference suggests this could be a more significant discovery.

The launch of NASA’s Kepler telescope, the first telescope designed to seek out Earth-like planets in our galaxy

Kepler is NASA’s most successful planet discoverer, having identified over 2,500 exoplanets in its two missions over eight years.

It found the majority of them on its first mission, between 2009 and 2013, but has continued to find more in its extended K2 mission, which began in 2014.

Until Kepler, scientists had no idea there were so many planets beyond our solar system. Thanks to its discoveries, scientists now believe there to be at least one planet orbiting every star in the sky.

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