Big Picture Science

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finally, Bigfoot meets habeus corpus: three men claim they have the body of the elusive hirsute creature on ice, and throw a big press conference to prove it. Lots of journalists show up, as do the Bigfoot baggers. Days later the purported historic discovery turned out to be - gasp! - a hairy hoax. How did these men perpetuate the con - and why did the media, including Are We Alone?, bother to cover it? Join us front row and center at this peculiar press event and for the post-mortem (sans body) of the latest chapter in the ongoing mythology that is Bigfoot. Guests: Lori Marino - Behavioral Biologist at Emory University Jeff Meldrum - Professor of Anatomy at Boise State University, and author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science Jerry Parrino - Owner of costume maker thehorrordome.com James Underdown - Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry West in Los Angeles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices