From Reddit:

"Observation 1: There is no SETI representative.

Observation 2: There have been SETI representatives in the past, even when there were no aliens.

Conclusion: It's aliens."

https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/5v5hy6/nasa_to_host_...

:)

It is probably the discovery of additional earth-sized extrasolar planets in TRAPPIST-1's Goldilocks Zone[0].

It would be really cool though, if at least one of those planets turns out to have an oxygen atmosphere...

The inclusion of Sarah Seager[1] an exoplanet scientist working on the problem of identifying the signatures of life in exoplanet atmospheres[2], is suggestive.

[0] http://www.trappist.one/

[1] http://www.saraseager.com/

[2] http://www.space.com/28756-alien-life-search-exoplanet-atmos...

Hah! Called it!:

http://www.nature.com/news/these-seven-alien-worlds-could-he...

HN Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13707547

Video of the announcement (you will currently need to rewind about 40m): https://youtu.be/UdmHHpAsMVw

Looks like NASAWatch has come to a similar conclusion based on various (and extensive) open sources: http://nasawatch.com/archives/2017/02/spitzer-discove.html

Rather than signs of an oxygen atmosphere (which was rather anthropocentric of me) it now looks like they may have found evidence (ie. escaping hydrogen) of liquid water oceans on one or more of the planets.

P.S. Ain't kremlinology fun?

Looks like BI accideentally broke the embargo long enough to get crawled: http://web.archive.org/web/20170222073559/http://www.busines...

Why will they keep hosting "major" press conferences for exoplanets? Don't we already know as time passes, we will discover more exoplanets like ours?

I think the point here is not simply that they found more, but what they found.

Does NASA know this makes everyone queasy with anticipation when they announce stuff like this? :{

In a good way but still...

Announcements of announcements are really lame. It deserves a collective term with journalism about upcoming XY.

Is journalism lagging so far behind social media, that they need to give the news before it happens? Or is it just good PR teams that amplify the hype by triggering it early?

For big visions it makes sense to talk about it before some release, but a new music album, an app releasing next month, all annoying.

They leak it through Infowars and Prison Planet to test the waters first, obviously...

The participants (less Nasa leadership) are all researchers with expertise in: atmospheres of exoplanets and biosignatures.

I wager the announcement will be about TRAPPIST-1b and/or c having atmospheres capable of supporting life.

My moonshot bet is that they'll announce the discovery of evidence of biosignatures.

Watch it be something far less exciting than the vagueness would lead one to believe.

Like when they promised "a discovery about extraterrestrial life" that turned out to be arsenic-based life in a pond which turned out to not actually be asrsenic-based