WASHINGTON - NASA will host a news teleconference at 4 p.m. EDT, today, May 15, to discuss the status of the agency's Kepler Space Telescope.



Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. Launched in 2009, Kepler has been detecting planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help scientists better understand our place in the galaxy.



The briefing participants are:

- John Grunsfeld, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington

- Paul Hertz, astrophysics director, NASA Headquarters, Washington

- William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator, Ames Research Center, Calif.

- Charles Sobeck, deputy project manager, Ames Research Center, Calif.



For dial-in information, journalists should e-mail their name, affiliation and telephone number to J.D. Harrington at j.d.harrington@nasa.gov. Media representatives and the public also can questions via Twitter to #AskNASA.



Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on NASA's website at:



http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:





http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

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