NASA will host a news teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Thursday, Aug. 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, the region around a star in which the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. Launched in 2009, Kepler has discovered planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances and helped scientists better understand our place in the galaxy.

The briefing participants are:

— Paul Hertz, astrophysics director, NASA Headquarters
— William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator, NASA’s Ames Research Center
— Charles Sobeck, deputy project manager, NASA’s Ames Research Center

For dial-in information, journalists should email their name, affiliation and telephone number to J.D. Harrington atj.d.harrington@nasa.gov by 1 p.m. Thursday. Media representatives and the public also may ask questions via Twitter using the hashtag #AskNASA.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/kepler