A galaxy full of planets on planetary radio.

Hi everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan.

Back with Public Radio's weekly trip around the solar system and beyond.

Way beyond this week as we welcome back Jeff

Marcy of UC Berkeley. He and his colleagues have been in the news lately thanks to

their discovery of course

planets that are much closer in size to our own Earth. Later of course we'll be

joined by Bruce Betts with this week's What's Up and his latest space trivia

contest. Here's a taste of what's happening around our universe.

Recent reports of a phone call from E.T. are sadly highly exaggerated, says SETI at home, Chief

Scientist Dan Werthheimer.

He and others with the project believe the so-called signal is almost certain to be explained

by a natural phenomenon.

Scientists in Georgia have found more evidence of a deep impact almost 36 million years old.

The 50-mile wide Chesapeake crater was first discovered in 1994.

Now grains of quartz formed in the heat of that meteor strike have been dug up.

And the man who first proposed that comets are dirty snowballs, has passed away. At 97, Fred Whipple was the oldest living

astronomer. He made many other important contributions to science in his long career.

You can fill in the details of these and other stories at the Planetary Society's website,

planetary.org.

I'll be back with Jeff Marcy, professional planet hunter, right after this high impact visit with Emily.

Hi, I'm Emily Ldawala with questions and answers. A listener asked,

...