LOS ANGELES, April 19 (UPI) -- Members of Congress say they've urged NASA to spare planetary science funding and resist pressures to make disproportionate cuts to the science budget.

In a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., urged the space agency to protect the funding for missions to Mars and the outer planets allocated by Congress this spring.

"While we fully understand that the funding levels ... are subject to change to reflect across-the-board and sequester cuts, we expect that the balance among programs will remain consistent with the structure directed by Congress," they wrote.

NASA will have to move some money around to make up for shortfalls related to the automatic federal budget cuts that went into effect earlier this year.

Schiff, whose district includes NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, said the science funding could possibly see reductions in the space agency's new operating plan.

"We're hearing disturbing sounds that they're going to raid planetary science, and seriously degrade Mars missions -- even though sample return is the highest priority" of the official plan for scientists in the field, he told the Los Angeles Times.

Schiff expressed concern taking money away from ongoing, high-priority science projects could hamper institutions such as JPL in their efforts to hold on to experienced staff for future missions.

"We lose the people who have the ability to land on the martian surface," he said. "It's a unique skill set. We're the only people who can do this. We don't want to be led on by NASA setting up the mission and then setting it up to fail."

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NASA urged to preserve funding for planetary science missions

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NASA #39;s Kepler Discovers Its Smallest #39;Habitable Zone #39; Planets to Date
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NASA's Kepler Discovers Its Smallest 'Habitable Zone' Planets to Date - Video

WASHINGTON NASAs planet-hunting telescope has discovered two planets that seem ideal for some sort of life to flourish. And they are just the right size and in just the right place.

One is toasty, the other chilly.

The distant duo are the best candidates for habitable planets that astronomers have found, said William Borucki, chief scientist for NASAs Kepler telescope.

And it has astronomers thinking similar planets that are just about right for life Goldilocks planets might be common in the universe.

The discoveries, published online Thursday in the journal Science, mark a milestone in the search for where life could exist.

In the four years Kepler has been trailing Earths orbit, the telescope has found 122 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system.

In the past, those planets havent fit all the criteria that would make them right for life of any kind, from microbes to man.

Many planets arent in the habitable zone where its not too hot and not too cold for liquid water.

And until now, the few found in that ideal zone were just too big. Those are likely to be gas balls like Neptune and not suitable for life.

Similarly, any Earth-size planets werent in the right place near their stars, Borucki said.

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NASA finds planet pair just right for life

The space agency is announcing new sightings found by the Kepler spacecraft mission.

Artist's concept of NASA's Kepler space telescope.

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has been in hot pursuit of extraterrestrial life for four years now. And, on Thursday, it's letting people know just what it's found lurking in the Milky Way.

NASA is holding a Kepler briefing at 11 a.m. PT on Thursday. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and on UStream. The agency will also host a moderated Web chat with Kepler Deputy Project Scientist Nick Gautier of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. During the briefing, people can submit questions to the Kepler scientists via Twitter with the hashtag #AskNASA.

Kepler launched in March 2009 and was NASA's first mission capable of finding Earth-size and smaller planets encircling other stars within the Milky Way galaxy. The space telescope has specifically been looking for planets within a certain distance of a star that would allow for a surface temperature where liquid water could exist.

To date, Kepler has flagged more than 2,700 possible planets, 105 of which have been confirmed. It was not that long ago when NASA announced Kepler found its first two confirmed Earth-size planets in 2011 -- this was a major milestone in finding out how commonplace, or rare, Earth-like worlds may be throughout the universe.

It's not yet known what NASA will announce on Thursday, but given the amount of attention the agency is giving to the briefing, there will most likely be some sort of exciting news.

Below is an image showing the Milky Way region of the sky where Kepler has been searching for other planets:

Kepler's targeted star field.

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NASA's Kepler spacecraft to reveal new planetary discoveries?

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An artist's impression of Kepler 62f provided by NASA on April 18, 2013.

The search for Earthlike, habitable planets beyond the Sun has been something like a boulder rolling downhill ever since the Kepler space telescope went into orbit in 2009. Before that, ground-based astronomers had been finding so-called exoplanets one or two at a time, here and there in the cosmos, and pretty much all of them were far too large to be hospitable, or much close to the fires of their parent stars, or, usually, both.

But ever since Kepler soared into space and turned its relentless, unblinking eye on a single patch of stars and never looked away, it began notching discoveries at an ever-accelerating pace, finding more planetsand more nearly Earthlike onesall the time. Whats more, its finding them in the so-called habitable zone, just the right distance from their stars to allow life-sustaining liquid water to exist.

Nobody quite imagined what the Kepler team has just announced, however. Writing in Nature, William Borucki, Keplers principal scientist, along with dozens of collaborators, reports the discovery of not one, but two potentially life-sustaining planets, orbiting a star some 1,200 light-years away, in the constellation Lyra. One, named Kepler-62e, is about 60 percent larger than Earth, and lies at the inner, hotter edge of the habitable zone, where water might be awfully hot but still avoid boiling away. The second, Kepler 62f, is 40 percent larger than Earth and is more comfortably within the stars just-right region. This, said Paul Hertz, director of NASAs astrophysics division at a press conference, is really cool. In astronomer-speak, thats huge.

(MORE: Never Mind Life on Distant Planets, What About Distant Moons?)

Borucki and the other Kepler scientists were quick to say they had no direct evidence that either planet actually has liquid water on its surface. All they know for sure is the planets size, and their distance from the star: 33 million mi. (53 million km) out for the larger 62e; 65 million mi. (105 million km) for the smaller 62f.

In our solar system, that would make both planets too hot for water to stay liquid. But the star, Kepler 62, is only about two-thirds as large as the Sun, and significantly dimmer, so a planet can approach much closer and still be hospitable. Even so, its not just water that matters; the atmosphere has to be just right too. The outer [planet], said Lisa Kaltenegger, who has joint appointments at Harvard and at Germanys Max Planck Institute of Astronomy, would need a lot of greenhouse gases to keep it warm, so you wouldnt want to take off your face mask.

The inner world, she said, could well be covered with a planet-wide ocean, if it has the same volume of water as Earth does relative to its size. That means it might be perpetually cloudy as well, since so much water so close to the star would result in a lot of evaporation.Thats a good thing, because the clouds would reflect some of the stars heat, which might otherwise make the surface too hot.

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Water Worlds: Has NASA Found Mirror Earths?

The agency's Kepler space telescope locates three planets -- in two new planetary systems -- that are the right distance from their suns to make them potentially life-supporting.

Left to right: Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Earth (except for Earth, these are artists' renditions).

NASA, that wily band of intergalactic peepers, says it's spied three distant planets in two different solar systems that are the proper distance from their suns to make them potentially habitable.

I can almost hear Elon Musk's pitch for time-shares in the Kepler-62 and Kepler-69 systems already.

According to a NASA press release:

The third planet, Kepler-69c, is 70 percent larger than the size of Earth and orbits in the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. Astronomers are uncertain about the composition of Kepler-69c, but its orbit of 242 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our neighboring planet Venus.

The Kepler-62 system has five planets in total, three of which have shorter orbits around their sun, making them hotter and inhospitable. The Kepler-69 system has two planets; super-Earth-size 69c and Kepler-69b, which is more than twice the size of Earth and orbits its star -- which is in the same class as our sun and located in the constellation Cygnus -- every 13 days.

NASA scientists caution that there's no way to know for sure right now whether these particular planets do host life, but their discovery puts us one step closer to finding a planet like Earth near a star like our sun.

Recently I attended a panel at South By Southwest on the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble scope set to launch in a few years. NASA telescope scientists there spoke of being able to answer the existential question "are we alone?" within a generation.

"The discovery of these rocky planets in the habitable zone brings us a bit closer to finding a place like home. It is only a matter of time before we know if the galaxy is home to a multitude of planets like Earth, or if we are a rarity," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

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NASA has found 3 nice, habitable planets for us to choose from

Artist's rendering of Kepler-62e (NASA)

The Kepler Space Telescope has been in orbit looking for planets around other stars since 2009, and it's started to find some startlingly interesting solar systems out there.

Today, the Kepler team announced the discovery of star system Kepler 62, a group of five planets circling a red star,twoof which may be capable of supporting life. That doubles the number of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone that Kepler has confirmed in the cosmos. And they're the smallest, and therefore closest to Earth size, that astronomers have detected. The system is 1,200 light years away.

This is remarkably exciting. Not only do we know about two more Earth-like planets out there, but they're in the same solar system! That sent at least one scientist into the kind of reverie that I've been having since I heard the news.

"Imagine looking through a telescope to see another world with life just a few million miles from your own, or having the capability to travel between them on regular basis," Kepler team member Dimitar Sasselov of Harvard told New Scientist. "I can't think of a more powerful motivation to become a space-faring society."

While scientists have found that our galaxy is teeming with planets, it takes longer to detect planets that take a long time to orbit their suns. That's because Kepler detects planets when they pass in front of their stars. If a planet takes a couple hundred Earth-days to go around its sun, the scientists need several years to gather several transits, as they're known.

NASA's Bill Borucki, the mission's principal scientific investigator and a tireless proponent of this misson for years, was understandably excited about the discoveries.

"The detection and confirmation of planets is an enormously collaborative effort of talent and resources, and requires expertise from across the scientific community to produce these tremendous results," Borucki said in a NASA release. "Kepler has brought a resurgence of astronomical discoveries and we are making excellent progress toward determining if planets like ours are the exception or the rule."

The search for planets like our own is one of the science's most exciting frontiers, and after years of waiting for the discovery of Earth-like planets, we're finally getting them. This one was published in the journal Science. It's also worth noting that Borucki's team announced another planetary system surrounding a star like our own that harbors one Earth-like planet. It was a big day for those awaiting news of other planets capable of supporting life.

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NASA Announces the Discovery of the Most Interesting Planetary System Outside Our Own

Since being launched into space in March 2009, NASA's Kepler spacecraft has been searching the Milky Way for planets that might sustain liquid water. Named after the German astronomer who discovered planetary motion, the craft has turned up nearly 3,000 such candidates, each of them positioned in the habitable zone of the Sun-like stars they orbit. But few of them have been so excitedly announced as two planets Kepler recently turned up, nicknamed Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Kepler-69c, all of which are significantly larger than Earth and orbit stars a bit smaller than the Sun. During a press conference held at a NASA observatory in northern California on Thursday afternoon, the agency said that astronomers believe each planet may contain liquid water. (One of them, Kepler-62e,may in fact be completely covered in water.)

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The astronomers came across the planets using a sophisticated telescope attached to the Kepler spacecraft, which records planets as they pass in between the spacecraft and a star. The telescope records the amount of light blocked by the planet, a measurement astronomers use to determine the planet's size. Later, after comparing data collected by telescopes positioned on the Earth's surface, astronomers can pinpoint the movement and location of those planets, relative to nearby stars. Using this technique,NASA has confirmed more that more than 120 planets in the Milky Way occupy a habitable zone.

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We're still far off from knowing what any of these planets actually contain, though. "Scientists do not know whether life could exist on the newfound planets, but their discovery signals we are another step closer to finding a world similar to Earth around a star like our sun," a NASA statement indicated.

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NASA Just Found Some Very Earth-Like Planets

NASA today revealed that its Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three planets that might be what the space agency considers "habitable."

That term should be used loosely, however. What it really means is that the planets appear to have a surface temperature that might be suitable for liquid water, which is necessary to sustain life. Still, it's another step toward the discovery of a planet like Earth.

"The Kepler spacecraft has certainly turned out to be a rock star of science," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. "The discovery of these rocky planets in the habitable zone brings us a bit closer to finding a place like home. It is only a matter of time before we know if the galaxy is home to a multitude of planets like Earth, or if we are a rarity."

The Kepler space telescope, which launched in March 2009, captures information about 200,000 stars every 30 seconds utilizing something known as the transit method.

"When a planet candidate transits, or passes in front of the star from the spacecraft's vantage point, a percentage of light from the star is blocked," NASA said. "The resulting dip in the brightness of the starlight reveals the transiting planet's size relative to its star."

This process has uncovered 2,740 possible planets; 122 have been confirmed.

The two most recently discovered systems are known as Kepler-62 (above) and Kepler-69 (below). Kepler-62 has five planets, and Kepler-69 has two. Of those seven planets, two of Kepler-62's are considered habitable, while one of Kepler-69's might be able to sustain life. They are known as Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f (above left), and Kepler-69c.

Kepler-62e: This was the first of the new planets to be identified. It's 60 percent larger than Earth and orbits its star every 122 days. That star, NASA said, is smaller and cooler than our Sun.

Kepler-62f: NASA said this planet is 40 percent larger than Earth, and likely has a rather rocky composition, based on previous studies of rocky exoplanets similar in size. It has a 267-day orbit and was found by Eric Agol, associate professor of astronomy at the University of Washington. He co-authored a paper on the discoveries for the journal Science.

Kepler-69c: This planet is 70 percent larger than Earth and orbits in the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun. Its composition is unknown but its 242-orbit makes scientists think it might be similar to Venus.

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NASA's Kepler Finds 3 New Planets in 'Habitable Zone'

NASA will unveil new discoveries made by its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope today (April 18).

Scientists will reveal the findings during a news conference at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) Thursday. The announcement will also be streamed live.

You can watch the announcement live on SPACE.com, courtesy of NASA TV.

"Kepler is the first NASA mission capable of finding Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water," NASA officials said in a statement. "Launched in 2009, theKepler space telescopeis detecting planets and planet candidates with a wide range of sizes and orbital distances to help us better understand our place in the galaxy."

According to NASA's announcement, Thursday's press briefing will include presentations from the following scientists:

Members of the public can ask questions using the Twitter hashtag, #AskNASA.

The $600 million Kepler spacecraft has flagged more than 2,700 potential planets since its launch. Just 115 or so have been confirmed to date by follow-up observations, but mission scientists estimate that more than 90 percent will turn out to be the real deal.

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter and Google+. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Original article onSPACE.com.

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NASA to Reveal New Alien Planet Findings Today: How to Watch Live

WASHINGTON (AP) NASA's planet-hunting telescope has discovered two planets that seem like ideal places for some sort of life to flourish. And they are just the right size and in just the right place.

One is toasty, the other nippy.

The distant duo are the best candidates for habitable planets that astronomers have found so far, said William Borucki, the chief scientist for NASA's Kepler telescope. And it's got astronomers thinking that similar planets that are just about right for life "Goldilocks planets" might be common in the universe.

The discoveries, published online Thursday in the journal Science, mark a milestone in the search for planets where life could exist. In the four years that Kepler has been trailing Earth's orbit, the telescope has found 122 exoplanets planets outside our solar system.

In the past, those planets haven't fit all the criteria that would make them right for life of any kind from microbes to man.

Many planets aren't in the habitable zone where it's not too hot and not too cold for liquid water. And until now, the few found in that ideal zone, were just too big. Those are likely to be gas balls like Neptune and that's not suitable for life.

Similarly, any Earth-size planets weren't in the right place near their stars, Borucki said.

In the Goldilocks game of looking for other planets like ours, the new discoveries, called Kepler-62-e and Kepler-62-f are just right. And they are fraternal twins. They circle the same star, an orange dwarf, and are next to each other closer together than Earth and its neighbor Mars.

The planets are slightly wider than Earth, but not too big. Kepler-62-e is a bit balmy, like a Hawaiian world and Kepler-62-f is a bit frosty, more Alaskan, Borucki said.

The pair is 1,200 light-years away; a light-year is almost 6 trillion miles.

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NASA sees distant planets that seem ideal for life

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