Nasa announcement live: Latest updates as space agency reveals solar system discovered with artificial intelligence

There have been few clues about what's going on

NASA's Kepler space telescope capable of identifying other earths

Nasa is preparing for a major announcement after its planet-hunting telescope found something in space.

Details on the revelation are sparse. But the agency only holds such events for significant breakthroughs, leading to speculation about what the Kepler space telescope might have found.

All Nasa has said is that it will hold an event at 1pm eastern time, or 6pm in the UK. It will be livestreamed on its website, and all the latest news will be shared here.

​The announcement gave some sparse details about what to expect. The discovery has been made using Google's artificial intelligence technology, it said, and it will almost certainly offer news about an exoplanet.

Those suggestions offer some clues about what is going to be announced, but otherwise everything will be revealed when the event begins.

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Key Points

• How to watch the major breakthrough as it is announced live
• What we know about the Kepler telescope's mysterious, major breakthrough

[14 December 2017 18:00 · Andrew Griffin]

It's 6pm. (The stream hasn't started yet.)

[14 December 2017 18:03 · Andrew Griffin]

That's it! Kepler has confirmed that stars can have their own solar systems, like ours.

[14 December 2017 18:07 · Andrew Griffin]

Here's the news!! www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/nasa-announcement-today-space-agency-exoplanet-latest-google-artificial-intelligence-a8111256.html

[14 December 2017 18:11 · Andrew Griffin]

In short, the big news is this: we've managed to find a solar system that has many planets as our own. But it's perhaps more exciting how we did it – we already knew about that solar system, but found new ones using Google's artificial intelligence technology.

[14 December 2017 18:22 · Andrew Griffin]

Again, you can find all the details on the new planets here.

[14 December 2017 18:24 · Andrew Griffin]

[14 December 2017 18:30 · Andrew Griffin]

One of the strange things about Kepler-90 is that everything is incredibly squished up. Does that mean it's not stable, the scientists are asked? The answer's yes – it's probably going to last.

[14 December 2017 18:32 · Andrew Griffin]

Questions from social media: What other area of space exploration can machine learning be used for?Answer: We've brainstormed other ways that we might use machine learningin astronomy. But the real answer is anywhere to replace tasks that people have to do tediously and repetitively with a computer. You can imagine that other types of missions, like planet-finding work, can be used. We've also thought about using machine learning to try and get better measurements of the way distant planets move around their stars.

[14 December 2017 18:34 · Andrew Griffin]

Now the researchers are talking about how the training and processing worked. The code will be released to the public, meaning that anyone without specialissed hardware can train the model that they trained - meaning that people will be able to search through the data themselves.

[14 December 2017 18:36 · Andrew Griffin]

Another question: There's eight planets in this solar system, and eight in ours. But some people say there might be a ninth one on the edge of the solar system – so is there going to be a rush to find the ninth here or there?Answer: Yes! And that'll be great.