David Morrison of NASA's Lunar Science Institute 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. Yes, we're going a bit Looney this week and not just

with David Morrison. Jack Gregg heads the sponsor of the second Lunar Regolith Challenge, which trying to give away $750,000 just over a week ago,

we'll get his post-challenge analysis later in the show.

We'll also learn in Emily Lockawala's Q&A why some solar eclipses are nice and long

while others not so much. And you'll have a chance to win a car when Bruce Betts joins me

for this week's What's Up segment.

A small car, a really small car, like two inches.

But Bruce's report is as big as the night sky.

Bill Nye will return next week. Remember how we teased you last week with the possibility that the Phoenix Mars Lander had found something very significant that Peter Smith and his team weren't ready to announce?

Well, sorry to let the carbon dioxide. Peter Smith and his team weren't ready to announce?

Well, sorry to let the carbon dioxide out of that rumor.

Phoenix's Mika instrument has found evidence of perchlorate

in the Martian soil.

That's chlorine with oxygen, and it's not nice. But Peter

emphasizes that this does not preclude life on the red planet. Besides other

instruments saw nothing. The details are at planetary.org where you can also

read about another Cassini flyby of Enceladus just as this show becomes

available. With a long and distinguished history in space science, including his founding of

NASA's Astrobiology Institute, David Morrison now finds himself the interim

director of the Space Agency's New Lunar Science Institute.

He spoke to me a few days ago from the Institute's headquarters at the Ames Research

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