Are We Alone for 12/014/09 - A Man, A Planet, A Tenal: Panama!

Are We Alone - A Man, A Planet, A Tenal: Panama!

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 )

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Are We A Blog?, the companion blog to the radio show.