December 14, 2009

A Man, A Planet, A Tenal: Panama!

53 minutes

While the Kepler spacecraft hunts for habitable planets beyond the solar system, we’ve let one of our own planets slip away! Find out why Pluto’s demotion to dwarf status created a public uproar as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson reads us his hate mail. From third-graders!

Also, how we might find Earth-like planets… the possibility of life on Saturn’s moon Titan… and TED Prize winner Jill Tarter’s vision for finding E.T.

And, the man who made it all possible: 400 years of Galileo and the telescope. Part of our series for the International Year of Astronomy.

Guests

Neil deGrasse Tyson - Astrophysicist, Head of the Hayden Planetarium, and author of The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet

Alan Stern - Planetary Scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, lead investigator on NASA’s New Horizons Mission

Jeffrey Van Cleve - Astronomer at the Kepler Mission Science Office

Carolyn Porco - Planetary scientist and Lead for NASA’s Cassini Mission

Jill Tarter - Director of SETI Research at the SETI Institute

Andy Fraknoi - Astronomer at Foothill College and author of Voyages Through the Universe (with CD-ROM, Virtual Astronomy Labs, and InfoTrac )

Descripción en español

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By Big Picture Science

4.5

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