NOVA: Finding Life Beyond Earth airs tonight, with lots of planetary stars

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla

2011/10/19 02:10 CDT

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Programming note: tonight, public television stations will be airing a new, two-hour NOVA documentary, "Finding Life Beyond Earth." If you do not get American public television, I've been told that NOVA will stream the show from their website after it premieres on TV. The preview (below) looks pretty promising. They have certainly assembled a stellar bunch of planetary scientists to appear in it! (This list came in a promotional email from NASA, so it probably doesn't include lots of equally stellar scientists who appear in the documentary but don't work for NASA):

Jim Green
Ashley Davies
John Spencer
Tim Shank
Steve Squyres
Carolyn Porco
Chris McKay
Mario Livio
Josh Eisner
Geoff Marcy
Danny Glavin
Scott Sandford
Stephen Mojzsis
Sarah Stewart
Hal Levison
Jennifer Eigenbrode
and more...

And my name should be appearing in the closing credits, because I produced a few animations of Cassini images for them. Once I've watched I'll post the animations that they used. However, it's unlikely I'll be watching it live, because it's up against the first game of the World Series. Yay for DVRs!