First, we will have some presentations from our panelists and then we will answer questions. By socialuestion media, please use the hashtag. Todays participants are thomas, a director at nasa headquarters in washington. Sean carey, the manager of the Spitzer Center in pasadena,. Alifornia sarah, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of technology in cambridge. And nicole lewis. , start us offmas with the big news of the day. Homas thank you i have been the director for five months and i have been in a that we docience here. We are changing lives every day. We stretch the imagination and today is just that. I am excited to announce today that the doctor and his team have used our space telescope to determine seven earth sized planets orbiting about 40 lightyears away. What is more, as you can see in the illustration, is that three of these are in the habitable area where liquid water can pool on the surface. For the first time, we found as planets and wel can measure the masses and the radii of these earthsized planets. These are among the best planets theollow up to see atmospheres and to look at the bio signatures, if there are any. The discovery gives us a hint that finding a second earth is just a matter of when. Scientists believe that, around 1, 3,star, there could be 5, 7 planets. You can imagine how many worlds there are out there that could be habitable. What we really have is a major step forward towards answering one of these questions that is at the heart of so many of our questions. We are making a step forward and im excited for you to hear about that. Thank you. Can you tell us more about the findings . Sure. Telescope toace one, not to, but seven earthsized planets and this is the first time that seven were found. Is the leastmassive star type detected. These are smaller and cooler than the sun, but they are frequent. If you look at this illustration, you see the comparison between the basketball and the gulf ball. The otherall would be son, which is much smaller and cooler. In this graphic, what you can planets that are formed around. Three of them are in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist and is most likely to exist on the surface of a rocky planet. Each of these planets what can you tell us about the distant planets . We have, thanks to the of thepe, a measurement masses for six of them. For one of them, our measurement is strongly suggesting a waterrich composition. This is a planet in the habitable zone. They are probably always facing the star with the same side. So, if you look at this animation, you can see a view of permanents, with a dayside and a permanent mate side. What is exciting about this system is that the planets are close to each other. If you are on the surface of one of these planets, you would have the view of the other planets. You would not see them like venus. As you can see, in the next illustration, you can see them as you see the moon. You could see the structures. They would be as large as the moon and even larger. It would be a wonderful view on these planets. Thank you. Can you give it an idea or more and whyto discovery this played such a vital role . Ini would like to say that, my opinion, this is the most exciting discovery we have had in the almost 14 years of operation. You look at the discovery of the we started doing followup with groundbased telescopes and continuous observations. We were able to confirm to the planets in the initial discovery and we found five more planets. It is pretty exciting. Brighter in much the infrared than the visible and it makes it ideal to use spitzer, which is an infrared telescope. In 2003, butunched was never intended to study exoplanets. Some engineering on the ground to come up with ways starlow spitzer to measure brightness is 1000 times more precisely than we had imagined. We do not image the plans. See theets pass and we amount of light that the star is dimmed by. The dips that you see are the planets going in front of the star. Tells youf the dip the size of the planets. When you see the different planets that orbit to around, you can measure the spacing between the transits and it tells you about how long the year is for the planets. When we know how long it takes to go around the star, we know the distance from the star and whether or not it is within the habitable zone. This is an interesting configuration of planets. They are close to each other and they tug and they poll each other. What it does is it changes the timing of the transit and it doesnt happen as regular. Toh that, we are able measure the masses of the planets. We have the mass and we can make an estimate on the density. Tell whether can the planets are rocky, gaseous, or watery. What can you tell us about studying the atmospheres of these planets . They tell us a great deal about the formation and the evolution of the planets and the physical planets that occur on the surface and the air. They demonstrate whether the plan is habitable. We can study the atmospheres of planets using a technique that detects the fingerprints of different chemicals in the air of the planet. We are currently using the Hubble Space Telescope to study planets to determine if they have hydrogen or helium dominate atmospheres. If they dont, it gives us another push forward and the potential for those planets to support water on the surfaces. Hubble found that they did not have hydrogen or heliumdominated atmospheres. What do we know about these worlds . To give you a brief tour of , if you zoome zone out, you will see the seven planets. This blue region is the habitable zone. , in this illustration, you this interesting planet. It is close to the size of earth receives about the same amount of light as earth does. You could have temperatures that very similar to earth. Now, f has a nine day orbit and it receives the same amount of sunlight as mars. G. Final planet is planet in thest system and it is 13 larger than earth. Receives the same starlight as mars and the asteroid belt. We do not have the technology to travel to these planets, but how long would it take to travel to . If we were able to travel at light speed, we would arrive in 39 years. A jet would take 44 million years. Wow. These discovery so exciting . We have made a leap forward in the search for life on other worlds. It is not just one planets. It is several. If we did not have the zone right, we have many chances. System,planetary goldilocks has many sisters. We do not know much about the planets. We know about the masses, the sizes, the radiation. For now, we speculate. We have a new poster you can download from our website. As you can see, it has captured experience of how, from one planet, you could see the other. Lanets in the sky when there is one, there is more. This is an amazing system and we know that there must be many more out there and waiting to be found. Doing tore astronomers learn more about the system . Is the nearest ultrakool door star. This is a veritable laboratory a very dim red star and astronomers go backandforth on the excitement about these worlds. Other people have fears and concernsand we get about radiation from the host star and things like that. More ofy, we will find these systems around these common stars that we can study. Astronomy, when somebody makes a discovery like this, we put almost telescope that can follow up to followup. You have heard about hubble and kepler. They are exploring the system theher and there is telescope that was launched in 2018 and the reason these planets were so significant is and they were accessible you can see the animation of it here. Theill be able to study atmosphere and assess the Greenhouse Gas content. Are these, indeed, the right temperature . To studyven use this gases that do not belong that could be produced by life. Lets thank you. Questions andg to answers, do you have any closing thoughts . For me, this research is really in the gold rush phase. I just could not help but notice last clause that was there is the same one from 1995. We have found dozens of planets in a habitable zone, but none with this many planets in the habitable zone. Telescopesrd, the are launching and you talk about it james Webb Telescope and is being planned right now. We are opening our lands and our viewpoints in the universe. That many of the best telescopes that will give us the most information have yet to be invented. There are many things we do not know and many questions we have in observations and we look at these animations and nature is way more beautiful and amazing than what we have animated. The question is how we open up and see these things, how do we get data from that. At the end, it is all about that thought i have so often when i go to bed at night and i really imagine how the other worlds really look like. And are just like the earth they have commonalities with the earth and you could imagine these worlds. It is only happening right now. It will be answered in this decade and the next decades. Thank you. With that, lets transition to questions. If you would like to ask a hashtag. Use the all right. Wonderful. We have a lot of questions coming in. What is the total amount of possibly habitable planets that we have found . Unknownotal number is and it depends on who you ask and how you count. There may be dozens of exoplanets that could be habitable, but they could be too hot or too big. We have to see the atmospheres and that is why those climates are so relevant. We can actually assess them in the near future. Wonderful. The next question comes from scott, who asks if there is any confirmation of water on the planetary bodies. There has not been any confirmation of water and it will take a lot of observations in the future to probe the atmosphere to see if we can detect water. That people are looking. This comes from matthew. Will this be one of the first about whens and what the Mission Launches . I am fairly certain that there will be some observation of all of the planets. We are going to get that are measurements of the masses than what we have currently. Ok. Questioning to take a on the phone line and then we will go back to social media. About theondering fact that, being a red dwarf, it planetsto support more because of less radioactivity and solar flares. This is a main concern about beenand they could have quiet andt it is now not active. By observation, we really figured out the path of this it was active. Canhe great news is that we observe in the future. Nature is usually smarter than we are. We will go back to social media here. This comes from our twitter user who asks on names for the planets. Names . Name . E a popular there are plenty of possibilities that are related to belgian beers. For now, we will call them e, f , g. Admittedly, we do not have a way to give a name to e xoplanets. S . Do they have any moon we have no indication of a moon. A would be unlikely to have moon. Maybe it could. We will see. There is still much news to come about the system. L forces between these planets is not negligible. If there was water, there would the tidal forces. We have teeth. I have a question for sarah. I am looking at the planets and i assume they are close together aboutere are questions whether you should consider these and echo system. Cosystem. Phere ofay the bios these planets extends . Quite a wonderful question and we have not thought about it this far. , ifll back this up and say we want to think about intelligent civilization looking back, they may be having a press conference saying that there are three habitable planets. What is outnd see there. Next on the phone lines, we have the associated press. Hello. I was wondering how many years you think it might take to have a real good handle on the atmospheres of these planets and i have a followup question. We could have a substantial amount of progress in the next five years. We are starting with hubble and we are continuing the exploration of these atmospheres. We could see results in the early 20 20s. Time seventhe first earthsized planets have appeared around a star like that. What is the closest runnerup like that prior . Or threek it was two and no more. I dont remember. There are many kepler planets. Lets go back to social media. This is from twitter. What kind of instrument could be used to answer the question whether the planets have life . We have instruments that cover wavelengths from the near to further into the infrared spectrum. There is a lot of powerful spectrographs aboard and it will allow a technique i talked about earlier, covering a range where we can detect water, methane, ozone, and oxygen. We can determine the potential of it harboring life. That we try tod emphasize the capability and nature has to deliver. Stars, we dont know what is out there. If there are atmospheres without clouds that have a substantial gases,accumulation of you will have no problem. If it is the opposite, it may be a while. We have a test mission and other groundbased searches. Many more of these have chances to find a sign of life in the future. Wonderful. They next question is, is it possible to listen to the system . How do we learn as much as possible . Toit was already listened and they had no artificial signal detected. It has been done, but there is no signal the tech did. The next question comes from our twitter user who asks, how long until we see a craft that can make the journey . Miraclesuires so many on the way. And thereabout this were 10 miracles to put together james webb. We had to put together a telescope and a thermal system that is a tennis court on the inside. You started managing your way forward and there is a question miraclesed about 100 and some of them relate to nuclear propulsion, radiation areection, things that we just starting to push at. There is a lot of work being it is not just because we have our eyes set on going to a star, it is that we want to get there faster and with more energy. This game is leaning forward and this is what i believe nasa is all about and it has led to this discovery in many ways. There have been a whole bunch of miracles and detectors. I would like to briefly mention our colleagues and you can see that they are planning ways to send thousands of tiny spacecraft flying by a near star. I just want to remind all of you that we will probably not have a way to get there. We are here because we have we are bigcopes and on remote sensing. That is what we have to work with and we are excited about the possibility of using our telescopes, rather than having we will have to leave the trip there to future generations. The next question comes from twitter and the question is about how old the planets are. , we knowe of the star it is. Very young. It is about half a billion years old. Them evolving. This next question is from facebook live. What is the distance between these planets . What is the distance between e and the star . The distance between the planets is a few times between the earth and the moon. Were talking about millions of kilometers hundreds of millions of kilometers. Planet e and the much closer to the sun. Is the system the closest one to us with planets in the habitable zone . Oximae closest one is pr centauri. A do not know if it is working planet, but it is in the habitable zone and it is only 4 light years away. It is the closest star, and fax. Unconventional tiger wants to know the range of the orbital p eriods. Is 1. 5 days to 20 days. Eriod. Rshort p you have the ratios. Periods are related by integer numbers. This showing and indicating that these planets should be trapped in this migration, but are in this peculiar configuration. They must have formed in an environment that was rich in ice and it should be reflected in the composition. Before we take more questions, i would like to talk to each of you about why the finding is so exciting to you personally. , yes, this is exciting for me because it is a great opportunity to study earthsized planets and atmospheres in great details. We are trying to understand what the air is like on these planets outside of our solar system. Exoplanetsstarted in we have , we are excited because we see ourselves here as the group of people, all of our colleagues, who are the pioneers in a search that will go on for many generations. This is really exciting. This is a personal experience and the ability to do these it not bens made clear that we were able to achieve the sites like this. It is very gratifying for my colleagues and i. We were able to pull this off and get great that a two scientists. So, i am very happy about this. Science,ent to study i switched to astronomy because it was the beginning of the exoplanets adventure and it was be doingt we would more than detecting planets that were unsuitable life. Unsuitable for life. And it isting there exciting for me. To me, looking for new point of view of nasa science programs, you look at what is theening right now and in recognition to look there is many and other places like that and, on the serious side, we have already heard about the real a tremendous with amounts in a crescendo. Time to askright that question right now. Thank you. Im afraid that is all the time we have left. Keep the questions coming and send them in at the hashtag. For more information and to to nasd the app, go. Gov exoplanets follow us on social media. C kicks off tomorrow and on our companion network. It starts with Kellyanne Conway at 9 00. Pacer in the day, more c speeches. Eastern, it is mike ac and live on cspan. As donald trump delivers his address to the joint session of congress. This will be the busiest congress we have had in decades. Cspan. O cspan and rg. Ministers and foreign spoke over the weekend at the Munich Security Conference and touched on Foreign Policy under the trump administration, n, and theisis, ira israeli and palestinian conflict. I am the chief International Correspondent of the bbc and here we are on sunday in munich the middle east. The french have an expression. The more changes, the more it remains the same. There is a new man in the white house and there is a new man in new york. There are