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Planetary Radio

The Planetary Society

The Planetary Society’s long-running weekly show on space science, exploration missions, and astronomy.

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Episodes

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—The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is ready to launchAfter 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 attempted, probing the nature of dark energy, discovering thousands of newAug 26 · 56 min
—Book Club Edition: Becoming Martian by Scott SolomonWill 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 and exotic environments? These and many other fascinating questions aAug 21 · 1h 18m
—The SpaceX Falcon 9 that crashed into the MoonA 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 facilitator at Columbia Memorial Space Center, producer at TMRO, and co-host ofAug 19 · 1h 4m
—Total solar eclipse 2026: Astrophotography and birdsongOn 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 because this eclipse happens near sunset, it promises to be one of the most Aug 12 · 57 min
—Space Policy Edition: “Science: A New Golden Age” - Reimagining U.S. science policyThe 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 the United States funds and conducts science. Explicitly modeled on VAug 7 · 1h 11m
—LHS 1140b: The first atmosphere detected on a rocky habitable-zone exoplanetFor 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 Hubble Fellow at the University of Chicago, to discuss his team's deteAug 5 · 57 min
—TERP RAPTOR: A student-built mission to asteroid ApophisOn 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 students at the University of Maryland is building their own spacecraft tJul 29 · 1h 2m
—Hot Jupiters: The ‘Roasted Planet’ and the wrong-way hotspotTwo hot Jupiters presented at the 248th American Astronomical Society meeting push our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres to the extreme. Research Scientist Tiffany Kataria from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shares new JWST observatiJul 22 · 1h 3m
—Book Club Edition: “The Edge of Space-Time” by Chanda Prescod-WeinsteinIt 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 feminist science theorist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein has followed her acclJul 17 · 60 min
—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 their lives chasing that same wonder in very different ways. This week,Jul 15 · 58 min
—Small Town Universe: Inside Green Bank's Radio Quiet ZoneGreen 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 the telescope can listen for faint signals from across the Universe undJul 8 · 55 min
—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 shifted from free-flying vendor-operated stations to a government-owned moduJul 3 · 58 min
—Rosalind Franklin and the search for life on MarsAfter 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 joins Planetary Radio to talk about what makes this mission like nothing wJul 1 · 58 min
—Tianwen-2: China closes in on KamoʻoalewaChina’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 fascinating scientific debate is heating up over this object's true identityJun 24 · 60 min
—Book Club Edition: “To Be Taught, If Fortunate” with Becky ChambersThis 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 and the wonders we will find there. Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An extrJun 19 · 1h 6m
—Flying on Titan: The engineering of DragonflySaturn'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 fields. It also happens to be the perfect place to fly a drone. NASA's DraJun 17 · 60 min
—U.S. space science in flux: Grant rules, rockets, and reorganizationBetween budget battles, proposed grant rule changes, and an exploding Blue Origin rocket, there's a lot to cover in U.S. space policy right now. Jack Kiraly, The Planetary Society's director of government relations, joins host Sarah Al-AhmeJun 10 · 56 min
—Space Policy Edition: A proposal to stifle American scienceThe White House's Office of Management and Budget has released a sweeping 400-page proposed rule change that would fundamentally alter how the U.S. federal government manages grants, affecting everything from NASA research to biomedical sciJun 5 · 52 min
—Spacewoman with Eileen CollinsColonel Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot and command a Space Shuttle, and the person NASA trusted to lead the program back into space after the loss of Columbia. But her story is about so much more than the milestones. In this epJun 3 · 55 min
—Los Angeles Astronomical Society celebrates 100 years of looking upThe Los Angeles Astronomical Society (LAAS) is one of the oldest and largest amateur astronomy clubs in the United States, and this year, it’s turning 100. To mark the occasion, the LAAS threw a centennial star party on the lawn of GriffithMay 27 · 1h 2m
—Twenty organic molecules found in an ancient Martian rockNASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars' Gale Crater for over a decade. A new analysis of samples collected there reveals something remarkable: more than 20 different organic molecules preserved in ancient rock, including the first dMay 20 · 56 min
—Book Club Edition: Diane Ackerman and “The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral”Author, poet, and science communicator Diane Ackerman is our guest. Her wonderful collection of poems, with one devoted to each of the worlds in our Solar System, was first published in 1976. Carl Sagan said she had produced, “...a stunningMay 15 · 51 min
—Igniting Discovery: A showcase of NASA-funded researchThe Planetary Society's 2026 Day of Action brought something new this year. For the very first time, the advocacy day was followed by a showcase of NASA funded science in an event called Igniting Discovery. Host Sarah Al-Ahmed speaks with JMay 13 · 57 min
—Day of Action 2026: Rejoining the fight to save NASA scienceEvery year, members of The Planetary Society travel to Washington, D.C., to make their voices heard on Capitol Hill. This year, just days after the Artemis II crew splashed down off the coast of San Diego, the Presidential Budget Request drMay 6 · 60 min
—Space Policy Edition: Why humans matter — The philosophy of Artemis IIWhen Artemis II returned its crew safely to Earth, millions of people found themselves unexpectedly moved. The mission was a test flight, a proof-of-concept, and yet it felt like something far greater than the sum of its parts. In this episMay 1 · 1h 19m
—Yuri's Night 2026: Celebrating 65 years of human spaceflightOn April 12th, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Sixty-five years later, we celebrated that milestone at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, CA. We began on the lawn of Griffith Observatory, where host Sarah Al-Ahmed spokApr 29 · 60 min
—Project Hail Mary hits the big screen“Project Hail Mary” is finally in theaters, and the science is just as thrilling as the story. This week on Planetary Radio, Sarah Al-Ahmed and senior communications adviser Mat Kaplan share their first reactions fresh from the theater. AutApr 22 · 1h 2m
—Book Club Edition: Founder and CEO Peter Beck on The Launch of Rocket LabHe built a rocket-powered bike when he was a kid. Now he leads the company that has made New Zealand number three among nations that launch big rockets, following the United States and China. Sir Peter Beck joins us for a deeply revealing aApr 17 · 58 min
—Triumph and turmoil: Artemis II and the renewed fight to save NASA scienceThe Artemis II crew has returned home safely after a historic 10-day journey around the Moon, the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years. In this episode, we celebrate some of the mission's most extraordinary moments: the record-breakiApr 15 · 60 min
—Artemis II launches to the MoonFour astronauts — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — are on their way around the Moon, on a journey that will take them farther from Earth than any human has gone before. ThisApr 8 · 58 min
—Space Policy Edition: Return to Launch — Cape Canaveral's unlikely historyWhat makes Cape Canaveral the center of U.S. spaceflight? The answer is a fascinating mix of geography, military strategy, Cold War politics, and a fair amount of historical accident. In this episode of the Space Policy Edition of PlanetaryApr 3 · 1h 13m
—Artemis II’s AVATAR and a sungrazing cometArtemis II is the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17, and riding alongside the crew is one of the most ambitious biology experiments ever sent to space. It's called AVATAR, short for A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response: tiny Apr 1 · 1h 1m
—The astronaut health experiments of Artemis IIArtemis II is about more than getting four humans to the Moon and back. It's an opportunity to gather data on human health in deep space that we haven’t had in over 50 years. This week, we’re joined by Steve Platts, chief scientist of NASA'Mar 25 · 1h 3m
—Book Club Edition: The Giant Leap: Why Space is the Next Frontier in the Evolution of LifeJoin us for an awe-inspiring conversation with astrobiologist and astronomer Caleb Scharf as he eloquently makes the case for "dispersal," the nearly inevitable advance of life and humanity across our solar neighborhood. From the book: "TheMar 20 · 1h 18m
—The 18th European Space Conference: Dreaming of European boots on the MoonHumanity is going back to the Moon, and Europe is already playing a critical role in making it happen. This week, Planetary Radio brings you voices straight from the 18th European Space Conference in Brussels, Belgium, where more than 2,000Mar 18 · 57 min
—Starman: Looking back on a life exploring the Solar SystemGentry Lee spent nearly five decades at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and in that time he helped shape some of the most ambitious missions in the history of space exploration. A new documentary, “Starman,” chronicles his career and the Mar 11 · 1h 2m
—Space Policy Edition: Is there really a space race between the US and China?Is the United States really in a new space race with China? Or is that framing missing the bigger picture? In this Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio, Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, sits down with PatrickMar 6 · 1h 9m
—Artemis update: NASA reshapes the road back to the MoonNASA has announced a major restructuring of the Artemis program, reshaping the roadmap for returning humans to the Moon. At a February 27 press conference, agency leadership addressed the rollback of Artemis II following post–wet–dress–reheMar 4 · 58 min
—Did an impact trigger cryovolcanism on Umbriel?Could a single ancient impact have briefly transformed one of the Solar System’s darkest moons into a cryovolcanic world? When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, it captured the only close-up images we have of Umbriel, a heavily cratered, Feb 25 · 60 min
—Book Club Edition: Planetary Society Chief Scientist Bruce Betts’ latest for kidsThey informed and entertained together throughout the first 20 years of Planetary Radio. Listen in as the Society’s chief scientist and book club edition host Mat Kaplan share the mic once again for a delightful conversation about Dr. BettsFeb 20 · 57 min
—A new chapter at The Planetary Society: Jennifer Vaughn becomes CEOThis week on Planetary Radio, we mark a major leadership transition at The Planetary Society. Host Sarah Al-Ahmed sits down with Bill Nye, outgoing chief executive officer and newly appointed chief ambassador of The Planetary Society, and JFeb 18 · 60 min
—Where did Earth’s water come from? Clues hidden in Apollo Moon dustWhere did Earth’s water come from? In this episode of Planetary Radio, we explore how scientists are answering that question by studying a remarkably well-preserved record of the early Solar System: lunar samples brought back by the Apollo Feb 11 · 1h 2m
—Space Policy Edition: What a NASA Authorization bill actually doesWhat does a NASA authorization bill actually do, and why does it matter? In this episode of Space Policy Edition, we dig into one of the most misunderstood but powerful tools Congress uses to shape the future of U.S. space exploration. HostFeb 6 · 1h 1m
—Europa’s quiet seafloorWhat if Europa’s seafloor isn’t alive with activity after all? This week on Planetary Radio, host and producer Sarah Al-Ahmed explores new research that reframes how scientists think about one of the Solar System’s most intriguing ocean worFeb 4 · 1h 3m
—Artemis II and III: The science that brings us back to the MoonHumans are preparing to return to the Moon. On this episode of Planetary Radio, host Sarah Al-Ahmed is joined by Kelsey Young and Noah Petro, two of the scientists helping turn humanity’s return to the Moon into reality. Kelsey Young is a rJan 28 · 1h 4m
—NASA science saved: Inside the 2026 budget victoryAfter months of uncertainty, NASA science has been spared from the largest proposed budget cuts in the agency’s history. In this episode of Planetary Radio, host Sarah Al-Ahmed unpacks how Congress moved to restore near-full funding for NASJan 21 · 1h 1m
—Book Club Edition: The Little Book of Aliens by Adam FrankFamed astrophysicist and science communicator Adam Frank shares his sense of wonder and humor in a live conversation about his excellent new book, “The Little Book of Aliens.” Join Adam and host Mat Kaplan as they explore the origin of lifeJan 16 · 44 min
—IMAP and the shape of the heliosphereOur Solar System is wrapped in a vast, invisible bubble created by the Sun, a protective region that shields Earth and the planets from much of the radiation that fills our galaxy. But until recently, scientists have only had rough sketchesJan 14 · 57 min
—Voyager and the heliopause: Exploring where the Sun gives way to the starsWhat does it really mean to enter interstellar space, and what have we learned since humanity first crossed the invisible boundary between our Sun and the stars? In this episode of Planetary Radio, we explore the science of the heliosphere Jan 7 · 59 min
—Space Policy Edition: Change for the Sake of Disruption at NASAMarcia Smith, the founder and editor of Space Policy Online, joins the show and revisits a conversation we had one year ago, recorded just weeks before the second Trump administration took office. That episode, “The Challenges of Change at Jan 2 · 1h 11m

Source: Episodes via the show's public RSS feed · as of Sep 2, 2026 00:00 UTC

Showing the 50 most recent episodes. Full archive on the show's site.

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