Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

Star Trek at 60: What Vulcans and Klingons can teach us about being human (Part 2)

This is part two of our Star Trek 60th anniversary series. Robert Picardo, the Emergency Medical Hologram on Star Trek: Voyager and a member of The Planetary Society's bo

Star Trek at 60: What do we value the most? (Part 1)

Star Trek turned 60 on Sept. 8, 2026, and to celebrate, we're kicking off a special two-part series exploring the franchise's deep and lasting connection to real-world sp

Space Policy Edition: The Long Space Age with Alex MacDonald

We tend to think of private space exploration as a recent phenomenon. But as Alex MacDonald, former Chief Economist at NASA, argues in his book "The Long Space Age," priv

World Space Week and farewell to Swift

Dennis Stone, president and co-founder of the World Space Week Association, takes us behind the scenes of the largest annual space event on Earth. From its origins as a v

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is ready to launch

After decades of development, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is preparing to launch. Once in orbit, Roman will conduct the widest surveys of the universe ever atte

Book Club Edition: Becoming Martian by Scott Solomon

Will we change or terraform Mars to better suit humans? Or are we more likely to change ourselves to better fit the red planet? How far can evolution take us in these new

The SpaceX Falcon 9 that crashed into the Moon

A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage slammed into the moon on August 5 after spending over a year and a half drifting through the Earth-Moon system. Jared Head, museum facilitat

Total solar eclipse 2026: Astrophotography and birdsong

On August 12th, 2026, the Moon’s shadow will sweep across Iceland, Greenland, and Spain, bringing the first total solar eclipse visible from Europe since 1999. And becaus

Space Policy Edition: “Science: A New Golden Age” - Reimagining U.S. science policy

The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy recently released "Science: A New Golden Age", a sweeping report that calls for a fundamental reimagining of how

LHS 1140b: The first atmosphere detected on a rocky habitable-zone exoplanet

For the first time, scientists have confirmed an atmosphere on a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of another star. Sarah Al-Ahmed is joined by Collin Cherubim, NASA

TERP RAPTOR: A student-built mission to asteroid Apophis

On Friday, April 13, 2029, asteroid Apophis will pass closer to Earth than our geostationary satellites. While NASA, ESA, and JAXA are all sending missions, a team of stu

Hot Jupiters: The ‘Roasted Planet’ and the wrong-way hotspot

Two hot Jupiters presented at the 248th American Astronomical Society meeting push our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres to the extreme. Research Scientist Tiffany K

Book Club Edition: “The Edge of Space-Time” by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

It may be the best book subtitle we’ve encountered in the Planetary Society book club: “Particles, Poetry and the Cosmic Dream Boogie.” Theoretical physicist and black fe

Sian Proctor and John Read on teaching babies to love the Cosmos

“Baby's Guide to the Night Sky” introduces the youngest kids — down to newborns — to constellations and the wonders of the Cosmos. It comes from two people who've spent t

Small Town Universe: Inside Green Bank's Radio Quiet Zone

Green Bank, West Virginia is home to the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope. It's also the only town in the U.S. where cell phones and Wi-Fi are banned, so t

Space Policy Edition: What's going on with commercial space stations?

NASA's plan for what comes after the International Space Station (ISS) has been anything but stable. Since 2019, the agency's commercial space station strategy has shifte

Rosalind Franklin and the search for life on Mars

After more than two decades, the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover finally has a path to the launchpad. This week, ExoMars Project Scientist Jorge Vago join

Tianwen-2: China closes in on Kamoʻoalewa

China’s Tianwen-2 spacecraft has successfully arrived at Kamoʻoalewa—a tiny, enigmatic "quasi-satellite" that dances along with Earth on its trek around the Sun. A fascin

Book Club Edition: “To Be Taught, If Fortunate” with Becky Chambers

This outstanding novella, “To Be Taught, If Fortunate” by award-winning science fiction author Becky Chambers, is a passionate argument for the human exploration of space

Flying on Titan: The engineering of Dragonfly

Saturn's moon Titan is one of the most Earth-like worlds in our Solar System, with a dense nitrogen atmosphere, weather cycles, methane rivers, and vast organic dune fiel