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| /Courtesy of Twitter |
By Lee Han-soo
NASA says it will make an important announcement on the latest findings from its Kepler Space Telescope at 1 p.m. Tuesday, U.S. Eastern Time (2 a.m. Wednesday KST).
Although the topic remains secret, many scientists are speculating it will relate to a newly discovered inhabitable planet, known as an exo-planet.
The telescope was fired into space in 2009. Nicknamed "Planet Hunter," it searches for inhabitable planets in the Milky Way, 120 million kilometers from Earth. It has discovered over 4,700 exo-planets and estimated that about 300 have Earth-like qualities.
Last year, NASA announced the discovery of "Kepler 425b." The planet has since been nicknamed Earth's cousin, or Earth 2.0.
Online magazine "Inverse," which publishes ideas about new inhabitable planets, speculates that NASA's latest announcement could be about another potentially habitable planet, or a planet that was once habitable. The magazine said the announcement could also be about supernovas or black holes.
Some conspiracy theorists even believe it will be about extraterrestrial life. But this is unlikely because NASA has only revealed the discovery of single-celled organisms, or the earliest forms of life.
The announcement will be posted on NASA's official website. Its presentation will be streamed live via NASA news audio.
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