A very big week for space science that's this week on planetary radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the Final Frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, a Chinese rover on the moon, plumes of water vapor

and Lord knows what else spewing from the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.

The eerie sounds of our own planet enhanced by a little human activity, and an

astounding report from the Curiosity rover on Mars that you may not have heard elsewhere.

We've got all this and more ahead as we extend our

usual conversation with Emily Lochuala and get a few comments about

planetary science policy from Casey Dreyer. Emily and Casey attended last week's gigantic gathering of

Geo and Planetary Scientists at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

We'll begin their reports in a minute and later Bruce Batts will tell us

about a night sky that is full of planets and wonder. We begin with Bill Nye, the science

guy and the big news from China. Bill, big, big week for space news.

I'm hoping you can talk to us a little bit about the exciting news from China via the moon.

What news?

No, I'm kidding.

No, I'm kidding. The Chinese Space Administration landed the Jade Rabbit

U-2 spacecraft, a rover on the surface of the moon, drove it out a few meters, seems to be working fine.

So this is another space agency able to land spacecraft on other worlds. This is extraordinary. Our world, the Earth is

changing because now we have multiple missions going to other worlds beyond the

low-Earth orbit.

So congratulations, Changge,

is pronouncing as best I can, Changge 3.

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