Bringing Astronomy to the people this week on planetary radio. I'm Mad Kaplan of the

Hi everyone welcome to public radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. It starts April 2nd.

100 hours of astronomy will span the globe with events designed to awaken a love of the

night sky and everything it contains.

Our guest is the co-chair of this extravaganza.

Mike Simmons will tell us how to get involved and talk about his many years of grassroots advocacy.

Emily Lautuwala will take us to Saturn's Moon that don't get no respect

and Bruce Batts unveiled a brand new online catalog of planets beyond our solar system.

We'll get started with Bill Nye.

Hey, Bill Nye, the planetary guy here, Vice President of the Planetary Society.

Last week I was given the opportunity to testify in front of the House Appropriations Committee at the United States Congress.

The hearing was about science education.

Now science education is more important than ever because our world is

changing and there are billions and billions of us trying to make a living on

what's proving to be a very small planet So a couple weeks ago the orbiting carbon observatory blew up. It didn't

get off the launch pad especially well. And when the Farring tried to separate something happened to the rocket and it

fell apart so everyone was very very concerned when a very similar

fairing was being used on the Kepler telescope.

This is the telescope that's going to trail

behind the Earth as we orbit the sun

and look for planets that are like the Earth

orbiting other stars. See, this is the old thing if we find a place to go looking for

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