Alan Stern and the Rise of Pluto this week on planetary radio.

Welcome to the Travel Show that takes you to the Final Frontier.

I'm at Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

Last week it was the head of the Messenger Mission.

Now we go from the innermost region of the solar system to nearly the outermost, as we welcome the principal investigator for new horizons, the spacecraft

that will finally reach icy Pluto in just two months. Bill Nye is back and he's counting down to the launch of Light Sale,

with a word for the mysterious X-37B as well.

Bruce Betts also returns, this time with an absolutely magnificent tribute to absolute magnitude.

Let's start our journey on Mars with the Planetary Society's senior editor Emily Lochuwala.

Emily when I saw your recent piece about Society Senior Editor, Emily Lockdawala.

Emily, when I saw your recent piece about curiosity, I thought, wow, haven't talked about

that in a while, so now's good timing.

How is the mission doing?

Well, the mission's doing great.

They wrapped up, I think, more than six months exploring Perump Hills, driving around

that outcrop about three times.

But now they're finally on the road again, doing what a rover is designed to do and that's

Rove across Mars. And Curiosity is really roving into absolutely

glorious landscape right now. The topography is getting just bigger and bigger as she approaches

Mount Sharp and we're seeing glorious layered rocks in the walls of these small

canyons and the view is just getting better and better up ahead.

So it's really fun to be driving again.

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