100 million solar systems like ours this week on planetary Radio. Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final

frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. We live in exciting times.

Astronomers are beginning to learn what percentage of stars in the Milky Way

Galaxy may have planetary systems like our own. The formula is based on a

thesis written by my guest this week. We'll talk to Scott Gowdy about his work

which includes collaboration in a project called

Micro Fun. Bill Nye, the Science and Planetary Guy reports in from London, England

on the ceremony that presented physicist Stephen Hawking with the Cosmos Award.

And a fully recovered Bruce Betts will show us highlights of the night sky, tell us what happened

this week in space history, and shatter our microphones with another random space fact.

Turns out Bill Nye isn't our only correspondent who's on the road this week.

Emily Lachtoala is the Planetary Society's Science and Technology

coordinator. Lots of us keep up with the latest Planetary Science via her entries in the

Society's blog at planetary.org.

So this week we catch Emily at the airport on her cell phone.

The connection could be better, but it's worth it because Emily, you're on your way where?

I'm on my way to Houston for the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference,

which is something I've been attending almost every year since I was in grad school.

It's a convention of geologists talking about the solid surfaces of other planets. And maybe we can get a more extensive report from you next week.

I'll shoot for that.

Excellent.

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