Emily shares highlights from last week’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, and Alan Stern provides updates on the Rosetta comet mission and his New Horizons probe that is nearing Pluto, and addresses the controversy around Uwingu’s Name a Martian Crater project.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emily shares highlights from last week’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, and Alan Stern provides updates on the Rosetta comet mission and his New Horizons probe that is nearing Pluto, and addresses the controversy around Uwingu’s Name a Martian Crater project.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

Planetary Radio brings you the human adventure across our Solar System and beyond. We visit each week with the scientists, engineers, leaders, advocates, and astronauts who are taking us across the final frontier. Regular features raise your space IQ while they put a smile on your face. Join host Sarah Al-Ahmed and Planetary Society colleagues including Bill Nye the Science Guy and Bruce Betts as they dive deep into space science and exploration. The monthly Space Policy Edition takes you inside the DC beltway where the future of the US space program hangs in the balance. Visit planetary.org/radio for an episode guide and much more.

Planetary Radio brings you the human adventure across our Solar System and beyond. We visit each week with the scientists, engineers, leaders, advocates, and astronauts who are taking us across the final frontier. Regular features raise your space IQ while they put a smile on your face. Join host Sarah Al-Ahmed and Planetary Society colleagues including Bill Nye the Science Guy and Bruce Betts as they dive deep into space science and exploration. The monthly Space Policy Edition takes you inside the DC beltway where the future of the US space program hangs in the balance. Visit planetary.org/radio for an episode guide and much more.

Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

Planetary Radio brings you the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. We visit each week with the scientists, engineers, leaders, advocates, and astronauts taking us across the final frontier. Regular features raise your space IQ while they put a smile on your face. Join host Sarah Al-Ahmed and Planetary Society colleagues including Bill Nye, the Science Guy, and Bruce Betts, chief scientist for The Planetary Society, as they dive deep into the latest space news. The monthly Space Policy Edition takes you inside the DC beltway with Casey Dreier and Jack Kiraly to discuss the politics of space exploration in the US and advocacy actions you can take to support the missions that matter. Visit planetary.org/radio for the space trivia contest, an episode guide, and much more.

Planetary Radio brings you the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. We visit each week with the scientists, engineers, leaders, advocates, and astronauts taking us across the final frontier. Regular features raise your space IQ while they put a smile on your face. Join host Sarah Al-Ahmed and Planetary Society colleagues including Bill Nye, the Science Guy, and Bruce Betts, chief scientist for The Planetary Society, as they dive deep into the latest space news. The monthly Space Policy Edition takes you inside the DC beltway with Casey Dreier and Jack Kiraly to discuss the politics of space exploration in the US and advocacy actions you can take to support the missions that matter. Visit planetary.org/radio for the space trivia contest, an episode guide, and much more.

Emily Lakdawalla At Her Favorite Conference While Alan Stern Stirs Up the Solar System

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 the United States funds and conducts science. Explicitly modeled on Vannevar Bush's landmark 1945 report "Science, the Endless Frontier," it challenges the traditional linear model of innovation, advocates for empowering individual scientists over institutions, proposes faster grants with less bureaucracy, and envisions a greater role for AI in the scientific process. But this ambitious vision arrives in a deeply contradictory context: the same administration has proposed slashing science agency budgets, cutting new NSF funding awards by over 50%, and imposing new bureaucratic controls on scientific grants.

Casey Dreier is joined by Zach Pirtle, deputy director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University, and the Planetary Society's Chief of Advocacy Jack Kiraly to unpack the report's proposals, tensions, and implications. 

Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/space-policy-edition-science-a-new-golden-age

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 the United States funds and conducts science. Explicitly modeled on Vannevar Bush's landmark 1945 report "Science, the Endless Frontier," it challenges the traditional linear model of innovation, advocates for empowering individual scientists over institutions, proposes faster grants with less bureaucracy, and envisions a greater role for AI in the scientific process. But this ambitious vision arrives in a deeply contradictory context: the same administration has proposed slashing science agency budgets, cutting new NSF funding awards by over 50%, and imposing new bureaucratic controls on scientific grants.
Casey Dreier is joined by Zach Pirtle, deputy director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University, and the Planetary Society's Chief of Advocacy Jack Kiraly to unpack the report's proposals, tensions, and implications.&nbsp;
Discover more at: <a href="https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/space-policy-edition-science-a-new-golden-age">https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/space-policy-edition-science-a-new-golden-age</a>

Casey Dreier is joined by Zach Pirtle, deputy director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University, and the Planetary Society's Chief of Advocacy Jack Kiraly to dissect the White House's "Science: A New Golden Age" report, which calls for a sweeping reimagining of how the U.S. funds and conducts science.

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

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 Hubble Fellow at the University of Chicago, to discuss his team's detection of helium escaping from the super-Earth LHS 1140b, and what it reveals about how rocky worlds build, transform, and lose their atmospheres over time. His team's paper, published in the journal Science, marks a milestone decades in the making. Then Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The Planetary Society, joins for What's Up, where we dig into the very first exoplanet atmosphere ever detected and its surprising connection to this week's guest.

Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-lhs-1140b

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 Hubble Fellow at the University of Chicago, to discuss his team's detection of helium escaping from the super-Earth LHS 1140b, and what it reveals about how rocky worlds build, transform, and lose their atmospheres over time. His team's paper, published in the journal Science, marks a milestone decades in the making. Then Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The Planetary Society, joins for What's Up, where we dig into the very first exoplanet atmosphere ever detected and its surprising connection to this week's guest.
Discover more at: <a href="https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-lhs-1140b">https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-lhs-1140b</a>

Collin Cherubim, NASA Hubble Fellow at the University of Chicago, discusses his team's detection of an atmosphere on LHS 1140b, the first rocky exoplanet in a star's habitable zone confirmed to have one. 

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

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 students at the University of Maryland is building their own spacecraft to join the fleet. TERP RAPTOR is a CubeSat-based mission roughly the size of a microwave that aims to fly past the asteroid and snap images of its surface as it approaches Earth. Four members of the team join Planetary Radio: Adrienne Rudolph, the Student Principal Investigator; Elena Wu, the Lead Project Manager; Tyler Autrey, the Mechanical, Structure, and Materials Lead; and Alexander Williams, the Propulsion Lead. Together, they talk about how a graduate class project turned into a real mission, what they hope to learn about this potentially hazardous asteroid, and why they're not letting anyone tell them it can't be done.

Then, Bruce Betts joins us for What's Up, where we mark the deployment anniversary of The Planetary Society's own CubeSat-based solar sail mission, LightSail 2.

Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-terp-raptor

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 students at the University of Maryland is building their own spacecraft to join the fleet. TERP RAPTOR is a CubeSat-based mission roughly the size of a microwave that aims to fly past the asteroid and snap images of its surface as it approaches Earth. Four members of the team join Planetary Radio: Adrienne Rudolph, the Student Principal Investigator; Elena Wu, the Lead Project Manager; Tyler Autrey, the Mechanical, Structure, and Materials Lead; and Alexander Williams, the Propulsion Lead. Together, they talk about how a graduate class project turned into a real mission, what they hope to learn about this potentially hazardous asteroid, and why they're not letting anyone tell them it can't be done.
Then, Bruce Betts joins us for What's Up, where we mark the deployment anniversary of The Planetary Society's own CubeSat-based solar sail mission, LightSail 2.
Discover more at: <a href="https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-terp-raptor">https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-terp-raptor</a>

A team of University of Maryland students is building a CubeSat to fly past asteroid Apophis during its historic close approach to Earth in 2029. Four members of the TERP RAPTOR team join us to share how they're turning a classroom project into a real space mission.

Emily Lakdawalla At Her Favorite Conference While Alan Stern Stirs Up the Solar System

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