Planetary Radio • Dec 31, 2025
Looking back: Space exploration in 2025
On This Episode
Kate Howells
Public Education Specialist for The Planetary Society
Mat Kaplan
Senior Communications Adviser and former Host of Planetary Radio for The Planetary Society
Asa Stahl
Science Editor for The Planetary Society
Ambre Trujillo
Digital Community Manager for The Planetary Society
Bruce Betts
Chief Scientist / LightSail Program Manager for The Planetary Society
Sarah Al-Ahmed
Planetary Radio Host and Producer for The Planetary Society
As 2025 comes to a close, Planetary Radio looks back on a year that reshaped space exploration, through stunning discoveries, major milestones, unexpected challenges, and the people who carried science forward through it all.
In this episode, Sarah Al-Ahmed, host and producer of Planetary Radio, is joined first by Kate Howells, public education specialist at The Planetary Society, to share results from The Planetary Society’s Best of 2025 campaign and the newly released 2025 Year in Pictures edition of The Planetary Report. They discuss the images, missions, and accomplishments voted on by the global space community, and how space imagery continues to inspire curiosity, connection, and hope.
Then, Sarah sits down with Mat Kaplan, senior communications advisor, Asa Stahl, science editor, and Ambre Trujillo, digital community manager at The Planetary Society for a wide-ranging conversation about the defining space exploration stories of 2025.
PlanetVac operates on the Moon Honeybee Robotic's Lunar PlanetVac instrument successfully collects a sample of regolith from the Moon's surface. Lunar PlanetVac touched down as part of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 on March 2, 2025.Video: Firefly Aerospace
Related Links
- The Planetary Society's Best of 2025 Winners
- The year in pictures 2025
- Blue Ghost Mission 1
- Blue Ghost 1 enters lunar orbit as Resilience flies by the moon
- Touchdown! Carrying NASA Science, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lands on Moon
- NASA’s Bennu Samples Reveal Complex Origins, Dramatic Transformation
- NASA’s Asteroid Bennu Sample Reveals Mix of Life’s Ingredients
- PlanetVac
- SPHEREx
- 2 NASA astronauts return to Earth after an unexpectedly long mission in space
- 'Doghouse' days of summer — Boeing's Starliner won't fly again until 2026, and without astronauts aboard
- NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return to Earth after 9 months stuck in space
- Chinese Space Station Crew Safely Home After Swapping Capsules
- Ever-changing Universe Revealed in First Imagery From NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
- Did NASA's Perseverance Mars rover just see interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in the Martian night sky?
- James Webb Space Telescope takes 1st look at interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS with unexpected results
- As NASA Missions Study Interstellar Comet, Hubble Makes Size Estimate
- Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: What We Know Now
- Hubble spots interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS for the first time
- NASA Says Mars Rover Discovered Potential Biosignature Last Year
- NASA’s Tally of Planets Outside Our Solar System Reaches 6,000
- Akatsuki, the Venus Climate Orbiter
- Our Last Presence At Venus Has Gone Silent
- ESCAPADE, NASA’s twin Mars orbiters
- NASA, Blue Origin Launch Two Spacecraft to Study Mars, Solar Wind
- First confirmed sighting of giant explosion on nearby star
- Should you be worried about solar storms?
- 'No spacecraft would survive': Europe simulates catastrophic solar storm to warn of real risks
- The NSF Inouye Solar Telescope Delivers Record-Breaking Images of Solar Flare, Coronal Loops
- Strong Flare Erupts from Sun
- NASA Selects Firefly for New Artemis Science, Tech Delivery to Moon
- Solar Orbiter gets world-first views of the Sun’s poles
- Buy a Planetary Radio T-Shirt
- The Planetary Society shop
- The Night Sky
- The Downlink


