NASA's press conference is scheduled on hold at 1 pm EST or 6 pm GMT on Wednesday, February 22 according to a NASA press release. The announcement of this press conference is already creating a furore as to the exact purpose of the news meeting, and a lot of speculations are already flying around. In fact, informed members of the public insist NASA scheduled the conference to inform everyone of the discovery of new exoplanets capable of supporting life in outer space.
NASA is not too forthcoming about the purpose of the conference
NASA's press conference is all about space exploration and space discoveries, but people are certain this particular scheduled meeting is going to be more specific than that. The space agency made the announcement but did not reveal any details on what the conference would entail or issues it would address. They however mentioned that it is to present new findings about exoplanets.
"NASA will hold a news conference at 1 pm EST (6pm GMT) Wednesday, February 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets," NASA had written. Considering the fact that NASA announced the discovery of 1,284 new planets in an earlier press conference at the beginning of this year, many think this scheduled meeting must have to do with the discovery of more exoplanets or identification of those that are habitable, International Business Times wrote. But whatever the case, people have got to wait till the given time to learn more.
How to be part of NASA's scheduled press conference
Some of the panelists that will be at the conference are Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington; Michael Gillon, astronomer at the University of Liege in Belgium; Sean Carey, manager of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech/IPAC, Pasadena, California; Nikole Lewis, astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, among others.
NASA's press conference can be watched at the stated time and date via several channels. It will be carried live on NASA TV and on NASA's website. Those that miss the conference can still ask questions from officials of the agency by using the hashtag #askNASA via Twitter. With this hashtag, members of the public can still interact with NASA panelists immediately after the news event is over, ZME Science wrote.
