An artist’s impression of a distant world orbiting an alien sun (Picture: Nasa)

Nasa is preparing to make a huge announcement about the hunt for alien life.

It is holding a briefing at 6pm British time on Thursday to reveal the latest findings of the Kepler telescope, which has been hard at work finding alien ‘exoplanets’ – the name for worlds found orbiting distant stars.

Kepler has been looking for planets since 2014, spotting at least 30 Earth-sized planets orbiting within the ‘habitable zones’ of their stars and another 20 ‘candidates’.

The space agency is expected to reveal the results of a collaborative project with Google which uses artificial intelligence to find planets which could support extraterrestrial organisms.




The teleconference will take place on December 14 and will be live-streamed on Nasa’s website.

A drawing of the Kepler telescope (Picture: Nasa)

A Nasa graphic showing the size of some of the Earth-like worlds Kepler has discovered

‘The discovery was made by researchers using machine learning from Google,’ Nasa said.

‘Machine learning is an approach to artificial intelligence, and demonstrates new ways of analysing Kepler data.’

Sadly, that’s all we know at this stage, although alien hunters will be hoping Nasa has finally answered the question of whether we are alone in the universe.

The Kepler telescope recently found ten more planets outside our solar system which could be the size and temperature to support life.

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The Kepler spacecraft before it was launched (Picture: Nasa)

This prompted one Nasa researcher so hint that aliens could be out there somewhere.

‘Are we alone? Maybe Kepler today has told us indirectly, although we need confirmation, that we are probably not alone,’ Kepler scientist Mario Perez said in a news conference.

Seven of the 10 newly found Earth-size planets circle stars that are just like ours, not cool dwarf ones that require a planet be quite close to its star for the right temperature.

That does not mean the planets have life, but some of the most basic requirements that life needs are there, upping the chances for life.

Others scientists agreed that this is a boost in the hope for life elsewhere in the universe.