National Geographic has a trio of shows coming up on Sunday May 16, 2010 you will want to see.

The first is called “Cosmic Fire”, and airs at 8 pm ET/PT.   The episode explores solar storms and talks a great deal about the Carrington Event.  Probably the best treatment of that event I’ve seen.  If you have any interest in the aurora this is a must see.  As for the part in the middle of the show talking about lightning and cosmic rays that’s a little out there (IMHO) but interesting none-the-less.   Like they say in the episode, it’s not a matter of “if” it’s a matter of when.  What might the consequences be?  The answer is explored and it is not good and they aren’t kidding either.   By the way, they mentioned the solar storm of 1989.   I remember that one specifically.  The aurora was seen horizon to horizon and so bright I could read a newspaper by it  and yet,  it was nothing compared to the Carrington Event.

In case you couldn’t tell, I really-really like the aurora.  While I was watching the episode poor Marian was getting emails about every 5-minutes with “hey did you know….” or “oh wow”  She was a good sport about it  

“Alien Wind” follows at 9pm ET/PT.  NatGeo takes us to the outer planets and to the surreal world of Titan.  We are introduced to the exo-planet HD 80606b, a thoroughly nasty place in the binary star system of Struve 1341 and features some of the pretty cool observations that have been done.

Finally at 10pm ET/PT:  “Deadly Dust”.  I never considered dust to be all that interesting, but you know, after seeing this I have a new appreciation.  I mean, while I am complaining about the coating of “Smead Road” that appears all too regularly in my house, I can think – it could be worse.   And I’m sorry, chasing down dust devils in the desert has to be fun!  They give us a “what if” scenario of a Mars sized dust storm here on Earth, be glad it won’t happen.