A Traveler's Guide to the Planets

National Geographic Channel is airing a miniseries on what it would be like to travel to each of the planets (and one dwarf planet) in our Solar System. Check your local listings, but here is the NGC site for the show: A Traveler's Guide to the Planets.

Six episodes span just a few days, starting Sunday night with Saturn and Jupiter at 9pm and 10pm, respectively. I find it very intriguing that they start with Saturn. I suspect it's because we have so many fascinating pictures from the Cassini mission, currently in orbit there. I cannot wait to see what they have for Saturn.

From the short show descriptions I'm very encouraged about the treatment of the planets, but also their moons.  They promise to touch on the Galilean moons in the Jupiter episode (the only moons you can see with a small telescope from your back yard, besides our own Luna, of course).

And for you Pluto-lovers, I'm especially looking forward to the "Pluto and Beyond" episode, where they'll talk more about Pluto's relationship with Charon. Pluto and Charon actually orbit each other, unlike any of the larger planets - the point on which they orbit is actually above Pluto's surface. I hope they address this in the show because it's not that well known -- and pretty unique (as far as we know, for now).

Kal