Planetary Radio
Planetary Radio is the weekly adventure on the final frontier produced by the Planetary Society and it's CEO, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Listen to host Mat Kaplan's conversations with the scientists, engineers, dreamers and leaders at the forefront of space exploration. You'll also hear our regular segments with Bill, "Planetary Evangelist" Emily Lakdawalla, and Director of Science and Technology Bruce Betts. Enter the weekly space trivia contest for your chance to win out-of-this-world prizes!
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 51 minutes
- Episodes
- 589
- Years Active
- 2014 - 2023
Celebrating Kepler
The Kepler mission has ended. Listen to highlights of the October 30th media briefing that included the father of the fantastically successful planet finder, William Borucki. Then catch the thought…
00:44:04 |
Wed 31 Oct 2018
Sailing to an Asteroid on the Light of the Sun
LightSail 2 is not the only solar sail in the universe. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Lab are preparing to send NEA Scout on a long, light-propelled journey to a near Ear…
00:51:09 |
Wed 24 Oct 2018
Back to Saturn for Brand New Cassini Science
Our most frequent guest returns with exciting, just-published research enabled by the 20-year mission’s enormous success. Linda Spilker has served as Cassini Project Scientist for 8 years, and was De…
00:36:24 |
Wed 17 Oct 2018
Celebrating Astronomy Day with the Giant Magellan Telescope
Happy Astronomy Day, October 13, 2018! We salute humankind’s long history of stargazing by checking in on what will be our planet’s largest telescope. Patrick McCarthy is an astronomer and a leader …
01:01:15 |
Wed 10 Oct 2018
Space Policy Edition: How NASA Came to Be
Happy 60th, NASA. In celebration of the space agency’s birthday, we do the audio equivalent of pulling out NASA’s baby book and explore its origin story. Though legislation creating the space agency …
01:09:27 |
Fri 05 Oct 2018
John Logsdon on the Dawn of the Space Age
The Dean of space policy, John Logsdon, returns with stories and a new book of original documents that shaped the US space program from the birth of NASA to SpaceX. Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye re…
00:49:39 |
Wed 03 Oct 2018
SpaceX Builds a Big Falcon Rocket
A mostly SpaceX episode as the ambitious company provides updated details regarding its huge new rocket and introduces its first astronauts. Mat Kaplan shares more from the company’s headquarters, wh…
00:42:27 |
Wed 26 Sep 2018
Return to Fiery Mercury With BepiColombo
Elsa Montagnon is Spacecraft Operations Manager for the European/Japanese mission leaving for our solar system’s innermost planet very soon. She joins us to talk about the long journey ahead. Elsa al…
00:38:29 |
Wed 19 Sep 2018
Opportunity, Phone Home!
The dust is settling on the Red Planet. Is the remaining Mars Exploration Rover about to rise and shine after three months of slumber? MER Project Manager John Callas returns with a realistic yet h…
00:33:36 |
Wed 12 Sep 2018
Space Policy Edition: Did NASA Ace its Midterms? With Special Guest Louise Prockter
We talk with planetary scientist and Lunar and Planetary Institute Director Louise Prockter, who co-led creation of a new report evaluating the performance of NASA's planetary science division. This …
01:25:07 |
Fri 07 Sep 2018
Big Science, Big Rocket at the Marshall Space Flight Center
Mat Kaplan’s Huntsville, Alabama trip wraps up with a tour of the historic and history-making Marshall Space Flight Center. Join him at the control center for research underway on the International S…
01:21:44 |
Wed 05 Sep 2018
Space, Rockets, and a Senatorial Encounter in Huntsville, Alabama
Host Mat Kaplan begins a two-episode visit to Huntsville and the Marshall Space Flight Center, recorded this week at the US Space and Rocket Center with astronaut Don Thomas, 94-year-old Apollo engin…
00:57:06 |
Wed 29 Aug 2018
Pluto Occults! Join Us on the Mountain
Pluto passed in front of a star on the evening of August 14. Mat Kaplan joined pro and amateur astronomers on a mountain to observe this rare event. It may reveal more about the dwarf planet’s tenuou…
00:37:21 |
Wed 22 Aug 2018
Giving Mysterious Venus the Love (and Science) She Deserves
We have so much to learn about Venus, says JPL scientist Sue Smrekar. What we learn will help us understand our own world and Mars. Sue joins us this week to make a great case for a new Venus orbit…
00:57:58 |
Wed 15 Aug 2018
Dark Energy’s Co-Discoverer and the Leader of Chinese Space Science
It has been 20 years since we learned the expansion of the universe is accelerating due to the mysterious force called dark energy. Saul Perlmutter shared the Nobel Prize in Physics because of his co…
00:40:25 |
Wed 08 Aug 2018
Space Policy Edition: Destination…Mars? Contradictions and Principles
The Senate just held a hearing on NASA's efforts to send humans to...Mars? A week later, the same committee advanced legislation to extend the life of the International Space Station to 2030, six yea…
01:01:16 |
Fri 03 Aug 2018
Diving Into That Lake on Mars
Our world was rocked by last week’s announcement of good radar evidence for a liquid water “lake” under the Red Planet’s south pole. Senior Editor Emily Lakdawalla introduces us to the story that i…
00:48:38 |
Wed 01 Aug 2018
Hayabusa2 Reaches a Dark Diamond in Space
Japan’s Hayabusa2 is just 6 kilometers from asteroid Ryugu as it prepares to snatch samples of the space rock for return to Earth. Mission Project Manager Hitoshi Kuninaka joins us for a conversatio…
00:54:15 |
Wed 25 Jul 2018
An African Observatory Hunts Killer Asteroids
One of the Planetary Society’s 2018 Shoemaker Near-Earth Object grants has gone to astronomers searching the sky from a mountaintop in the North African nation of Morocco. Observer Michel Ory tells …
00:43:50 |
Wed 18 Jul 2018
Something Old and Something New: Exciting Research on the International Space Station
Sextants have helped sailors find their way across oceans for centuries. Now one is onboard the International Space Station so that astronauts can learn to find their way across the solar system even…
00:51:48 |
Wed 11 Jul 2018
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