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 )
