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Mat Kaplan • Dec 20, 2012

Planetary Radio Live Celebrates Curiosity/Truly Haute Cuisine!

Listen to or watch the webcast recorded Saturday, December 15th, and enjoy a neat little French animation.

What does Django Reinhardt-style jazz have to do with the Mars Science Laboratory rover? Nothing, until Saturday, December 15th. The jazz came from our PlanRad Live musical guests, the members of Hedgehog Swing. The celebration came courtesy of Curiosity Project Manager Richard Cook and Project Scientist John Grotzinger and their amazing machine on Mars. Richard and John joined Emily Lakdawalla, Bill Nye and me on stage at Southern California Public Radio's Crawford Family Forum, which has hosted most of our live shows.

Planetary Radio Live--Celebrating Curiosity
Planetary Radio Live--Celebrating Curiosity On stage in the Crawford Family Forum are host Mat Kaplan, Emily Lakdawalla and Bill Nye of the Planetary Society, with Richard Cook and John Grotzinger of the Curiosity mission.Image: Laura Kaplan-Nieto

The first half of our mission discussion is part of this week's radio and podcast episode. Emily began the show with some of her favorite Curiosity images. You can see them as part of the Planetary Radio Live webcast SCPR created for us. Radio or webcast, you'll also enjoy our regular visit with Bruce Betts, and the terrific tunes from Hedgehog Swing.

We're sure to produce another Planetary Radio Live before long. I hope you can join us.

Hedgehog Swing quartet and new fan Bill Nye
Hedgehog Swing quartet and new fan Bill Nye The young and talented members of Hedgehog Swing are joined by their newest fan, Planetary Society CEO Bill NyeImage: Laura Kaplan-Nieto

In the meantime, take a look at this terrific CGI short created by French animation student Corentin Charron, aka Onectin. I'm grateful to Christophe Charron for sharing it with me. Bon appetit!

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