A messenger from Mercury this week on planetary radio. Recon Planetary Radio. Radio. Welcome to the Travel Show that takes you to the Final Frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

We are in the final months of a mission that has

revealed many of the secrets and many new mysteries about our solar

systems innermost world.

Messenger Principal investigator Sean Solomon is back with an update.

Bill Nye is watching as bold new technologies make reaching space easier and cheaper, and

we'll look to Mars for the answer to this week's

what's up space trivia contest with Bruce Betts.

The Geological Society of America just completed its annual meeting.

Senior editor Emily Lochuwala was there.

Emily, welcome back from Vancouver, where you attended this geology conference.

Tell us just a little bit about it, an overview.

Well, like any other scientific conference conference it's a bunch of scientists

getting together to talk about their work you can always tell what kind of

conference you're at by the the dress code that people seem to follow this one

most people were wearing hiking boots and technical jackets. I felt a little out of place.

But yeah, it's a geology conference, mostly field geologists, and curiosity is a mission that's

really doing field geology on Mars, so the session fit right in.

So you have written this really interesting piece.

It's a long one.

It's a little mini geology textbook about what appears to be a mystery, maybe even close to a paradox on the red planet.

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