Oceans down here and up there this week on planetary radio.

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

I'm at Kaplan to the Final Frontier.

I'm at Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

It's back to the Aquarium of the Pacific this week as we present a special conversation

about the importance of learning more about the

seas of Earth and the increasing number of oceans past and present

that we are finding almost everywhere in our solar system.

We'll also check in with Bruce Betts

as the space trivia Contest gets underway again.

We'll begin with Senior Editor Emily Lochuala's latest update from the once very wet surface of the Red Planet.

Emily, another terrific report on the progress of Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory

rover.

Let's start with this wonderful topo map that you've created with help from some others. You know it's

funny with all those wonderful images taken by curiosity this one is doing a

better job at least for me of making me feel like I could be walking right there among these hills

and valleys and butts and so on.

This topo map was really fun to work on.

Of course, when you're a geologist exploring a landscape you do it you do your mapping on a

base topography map and usually Mars Landers they land in places that are so flat that

topography isn't really all that important but curiosity has driven far enough that she's

started getting into some really serious topography. It's made driving a little

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