Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science

Dennis Stone, president and co-founder of the World Space Week Association, takes us behind the scenes of the largest annual space event on Earth. From its origins as a volunteer effort in Houston to a UN-declared celebration reaching 50,000 events in over 100 countries, Dennis shares how World Space Week inspires the next generation, and how you can get involved this Oct. 4 through 10. Then, Science Editor Asa Stahl breaks down the end of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, the 21-year-old space telescope that's falling out of orbit after a bold rescue mission fell short. Plus, Chief Scientist Bruce Betts looks back at a milestone centennial in this week's What's Up, 100 years since Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-world-space-week-and-swift
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After 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 new exoplanets, and capturing images of billions of galaxies. In this episode, we sit down with Julie McEnery, senior project scientist for Roman at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and Jason Rhodes, project scientist for Roman at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to explore what the telescope will reveal and how scientists around the world will be able to access and work with its data. Plus, in What's Up, we look at Roman's coronagraph and what it will take for the Habitable Worlds Observatory to push that technology far enough to image Earth-like worlds around Sun-like stars.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-nancy-grace-roman
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Will 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 are at the heart of Rice University professor Scott Solomon’s great book, “Becoming Martian”. He joins host Mat Kaplan for a far-ranging conversation in this month’s installment of Planetary Radio’s book club edition.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/book-club-scott-solomon
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A 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 of All Space Considered at Griffith Observatory, walks us through how a rocket launched in January 2025 ended up crashing into the lunar surface. Kate Howells, the Planetary Society's public education specialist, shares her experience witnessing Europe's first total solar eclipse in 27 years from a canyon in Spain on her honeymoon. Plus, Jack Kiraly, the Planetary Society's chief of advocacy, gives us an update on the campaign to save NASA science and the proposed changes to OMB's federal grant-making rules. We close with Bruce Betts, our chief scientist, who joins for What's Up, to discuss Point Nemo, the spacecraft graveyard in the South Pacific.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-falcon-9-moon-crash
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On 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 visually stunning in living memory.
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy, founder of Cosmic Background Photography, joins the show to talk about his extraordinary 2024 eclipse image, his collaboration with the Artemis II crew to capture the Moon in unprecedented detail, and what he's planning for this unique low-horizon eclipse. Then, bioacoustics researcher David Mann, founder of Haikubox and Loggerhead Instruments, shares the results of the Eclipse Echoes study, which used a network of hundreds of AI-powered bird monitors to reveal how birds across North America responded to the 2024 eclipse. The answer is far more complicated than simply going quiet.
Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-total-solar-eclipse
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