NASA announcement: When is it? How to watch the major breakthrough as it is announced live

NASA has mysteriously revealed it will make a big announcement on Thursday. Here is everything you need to know.

By Ariane Sohrabi-Shiraz /

The space agency is due to hold a major press conference, where it will reveal a major discovery of an alien planet.

NASA is due to in its planet-hunting project.

The press conference will reveal all about the latest mysterious discovery.

Very little information is known about exactly what will be said, but it is believed it will involve the discovery of exoplanets – planets located outside the Solar system – detected by the Kepler space telescope.

The Kepler telescope has been looking for other habitable worlds since 2009.

Space GETTY

MAJOR DISCOVERY: NASA has made a major discovery with the Kepler space telescope

“The discovery was made by researchers using machine learning from Google”

NASA officials

The space agency has also revealed the discovery will involve Artificial Intelligence.

NASA officials said: “The discovery was made by researchers using machine learning from Google,”

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

Four scientists will be at the event, NASA Washington Astrophysics Division director Paul Hertz, Google AI software engineer Christopher Shallue, astronomer Andrew Vanderburg and Kepler project scientist Jessie Dotson.

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Aug. 19, 2016: Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams (shown here) and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA successfully installed the first of two international docking adapters during a five hour and 58-minute spacewalk NASA
Aug. 19, 2016: Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams (shown here) and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA successfully installed the first of two international docking adapters during a five hour and 58-minute spacewalk

    When is the announcement?

    NASA’s announcement will be at 6pm in the UK, on Thursday, December 14.

    How to watch the announcement:

    You can watch the announcement on NASA’s site for live events here: https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

    NASA GETTY

    STERIOUS: NASA will make the announcement on Thursday

    What is Kepler?

    Since Kepler launched in 2009 it has had a major impact on our understanding of space.

    Before its launch, it was unknown if alien planets were common.

    The telescope has proved successful – discovering a huge number of exciting worlds.

    Kepler space telescope NASA

    ANNOUNCEMENT: An artist's illustration of the Kepler telescope observing other worlds

    Now NASA know the exoplanets are more common than expected.

    Kepler works by scanning the sky, keeping an eye on more than 145,000 stars.

    Scientists know they have something interesting when they see stars dim when a planet crosses in front.

    They can find out how many planets each star has by tracking dimming patterns.

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