Explore Worlds
Find Life
Defend Earth
Planetary Radio Episodes
Since 2002, Planetary Radio has visited with a scientist, engineer, project manager, advocate, or writer who provides a unique perspective on the quest for knowledge about our Solar System and beyond. The full show archive is available for free.
NASA has given the green light to Principal Investigator Les Johnson and his team for construction of a solar sail that dwarfs all that have come before.
In spite of everything, 2020 was a good year for space exploration according to five of The Planetary Society’s experts.
18 astronauts on the Artemis Team have a shot at walking on the Moon, and Stephanie Wilson is one of them.
Making oxygen from the Martian atmosphere will be essential if humans are ever to visit and work on the Red Planet, and the MOXIE experiment will soon show us how.
Bill Nye helps us welcome the Planetary Society’s new president who also leads a new Moon mission, while China’s lunar sample return spacecraft is headed home.
Host Mat Kaplan talked with the Arecibo Observatory director just hours before the giant radio telescope came crashing down.
Astronomer Jane Greaves returns with an update on the phosphine gas floating above Venus, before Casey Honnibal takes us through her team’s discovery of water right out under the Sun on Earth’s Moon.
Two pioneering Mars orbiters are still doing great work above the Red Planet, while the first operational Crew Dragon spaceship has delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station.
A distant, lonely planet has been discovered as it wanders the galaxy, while Bill Nye helps us celebrate selection of a radically-simple sample collection system for trips to the Moon and Mars’ moon Phobos.
Joel Sercel believes we are entering an era in which asteroid mining and other commercial development of space are imminent, but he’s concerned about how we will avoid the mistakes of past eras of human expansion.
The leader of the OSIRIS REx asteroid sample return mission shares more details of last week’s encounter in an exclusive interview, while we also learn about the proposed mission to look for life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft appears to have collected its first sample from asteroid Bennu, while a team led by Jane Greaves has discovered what could be evidence of life in the clouds of Venus.
Creators of an outstanding new collection of poems about spaceflight and exploration join Mat Kaplan to talk about the book as Bill Nye and other notables read selections.
NASA’s planetary protection officer joined Mat Kaplan’s Humans to Mars summit panel for a great conversation about protecting worlds throughout the solar system from what could be devastating contamination.
Astronomer and planetary scientist Heidi Hammel’s AURA shines bright across our solar system and beyond.
Planetary Society Solar System Specialist Emily Lakdawalla makes a big announcement, and shares stories from her long history with the organization.
It could be a profound and historic discovery made on Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.
Former Dawn mission director Marc Rayman of JPL reveals the secrets of the bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres, and we celebrate 10 years as Planetary Society CEO with Bill Nye.
Georgetown University planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson chronicles the long history of our fascination with Mars and the possibility of life there, culminating with Perseverance, the new rover now headed there.
How will the universe end? That’s the question explored by cosmologist Katie Mack in her very entertaining new book.