NASA Digest, Vol 45, Issue 5

	February 20, 2017  MEDIA ADVISORY M17-019 NASA to Host News Conference on Discovery Beyond Our Solar System NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. Details of these findings are embargoed by the journal Nature until 1 p.m. Limited seating is available in the NASA TV studio for media who would like to attend in person at the agency's Headquarters at 300 E Street SW in Washington. Media unable to attend in person may ask questions by telephone. To attend in person or participate by phone, media must send an email with their name, affiliation and telephone number to Dwayne Brown at dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov by noon Feb. 22. Media and the public also may ask questions during the briefing on Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA. The briefing participants 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 ·        Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge A Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) about exoplanets will be held following the briefing at 3 p.m. with scientists available to answer questions in English and Spanish. For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and updated scheduling information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv For more information on exoplanets, visit: http://exoplanets.nasa.gov
	Press Contacts Felicia Chou / Sean Potter Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 / 202-358-1536 felicia.chou@nasa.gov / sean.potter@nasa.gov Elizabeth Landau Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-6425 elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov