shedding light on new worlds this week on planetary radio.

Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan.

Harvard astronomer Dave Charbonneau and his colleagues

used a new space telescope to detect light from a planet

that's 500 light years from Earth. That's a first. We'll talk with

him about the meaning of this discovery. Already got a stylish planetary

radio t-shirt. Later today Bruce Betts announces a new prize for winners of our space trivia contest

It's part of his usual what's-up report on the night sky and more

Let's start with the sampling of the news from here and then in the space-time continuum. You can now take a look at a somewhat

controversial image taken by a team of European astronomers.

They believe it is the first actual picture of a planet orbiting another star.

Check it out at planetary.org.

Dave Charbonneau and I will also talk about this story in just a few minutes.

Spirit and opportunity have gotten a new lease on life.

NASA has extended their mission on the surface of Mars by another 18 months.

Both are showing signs of wear and tear, but Spirit recently got a car wash of sorts.

High winds blew the dust off her solar panels,

doubling the amount of electricity available to the rover.

And the Japanese Space Agency has laid out plans that could put Japanese astronauts on the moon by 2025.

The nation will send robotic missions as it looks at development of a vehicle that can

carry humans.

Dave Charbonneau is here right after Emily serves up some of our planet's deepest

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