The asteroid hunter

Gentry Lee spent nearly five decades at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and in that time he helped shape some of the most ambitious missions in the history of space exploration. A new documentary, “Starman,” chronicles his career and the big question that runs through it: is th ... Show More

Is the United States really in a new space race with China? Or is that framing missing the bigger picture? In this Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio, Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, sits down with Patrick Besha, former NASA strategic advisor on ... Show More

NASA has announced a major restructuring of the Artemis program, reshaping the roadmap for returning humans to the Moon. At a February 27 press conference, agency leadership addressed the rollback of Artemis II following post–wet–dress–rehearsal testing and unveiled significant c ... Show More

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will attempt a daring feat: to briefly reach out its mechanical arm and grab a sample from an asteroid’s surface. Dante Lauretta, Heather Enos, and Ron Mink introduce you to NASA’s asteroid hunter and what this sample return mission means for us here ... Show More

If you’re a comic book or sci-fi fan, you’ve likely read about the far-off idea of hitching a ride on an asteroid and mining it for precious metals and ice. But it’s not science fiction anymore. In this episode, we’ll take a look at two real-life asteroid-mining missions in the w ... Show More

It's a beautiful night—the sky is clear, the stars are twinkling. You see a shooting star! Or is it a comet! Maybe a meteor? Whatever it is, it’s gone in an instant. But what if that whirring bit of space were headed... straight towards the Earth, not past it? Yeah, not so cute. ... Show More

Izzie and Dr Becky explore the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter. What do we know about this big ol’ planet? And what are the missions that will find out even more? The team is joined by Scott Boulton, Principal Investigator of NASA's Juno mission, and Professor Emma Bu ... Show More

The Infinite Monkey Cage teleports to California for this special episode recorded at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They are joined by comedian and talk-show host Conan O'Brien, alongside JPL's Dr Katie Stack Morgan and Dr Kevin Hand, and discuss the incredible missions that ... Show More

Brian Cox and Robin Ince continue their LA science adventure as they visit Caltech in Pasadena to meet the scientists hunting for planets orbiting distant stars in solar systems far far from our own. They are joined in their quest by Python Legend Eric Idle and Exo-planet hunters ... Show More

How did the planets form? How did life happen? Where did Earth’s water come from? To answer questions like these, scientists used to go big—looking at planets, dwarf planets, and moons—but now small is the new big. Technology is zooming in on the pint-size stuff—asteroids, comets ... Show More

Under the mighty radio Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, Victoria Gill brings together some of the UK’s leading experts who were visiting the recent ‘bluedot’ science and music festival. They discussed the ongoing hunt for extraterrestrial life. We hear from Karen Olsson-Francis, ... Show More

If an asteroid were hurling through space, making a beeline straight to Earth, how would humans prevent it from doing what it did to the dinosaurs? Would we bomb it? Would we shoot lasers at it like a scene from Hollywood's latest sci-fi flick? Well, the folks at NASA have design ... Show More