Kepler discovers hundreds of new planets in our galaxy, that's this week on planetary radio. Welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. We may know soon if the Kepler Space Telescope has

doubled the number of known exoplanets, worlds orbiting other stars.

William Baruchy is the Mission Science Principal Investigator.

He'll join us once again this time to describe this astounding discovery.

We have lots more for you in today's busy show.

Bill Nye, the science and planetary guy, has found a surprising side effect of climate change,

where no one expected to see it.

And Bruce Betts has helped me decide who should get our help

buying a slightly used, slightly singed space shuttle, cheap. Bruce will also tell us about some great

stuff to look for in the night sky.

Let's get started by visiting with Emily Lautuwala.

Emily, how goes the vacation?

It's been nice to get a break. I won't lie to you.

I'm looking forward to it. Mine starts after preparing today's show.

So tell us what's up for the month of July?

Well I picked my vacation to be in between the excitement of Hayabusa and Ikeros last month and the excitement of Rosetta,

the European Space Station Steve Comet Chaser encountering asteroid Lutisha early this month.

That happens on July 10th. It'll fly past Lutisha, which is asteroid number 21 and that

low number tells you that it's one of the biggest asteroids in the belt and it's certainly the biggest

one that has ever been visited by a spacecraft before

so that's uh... that's almost immediate uh... some people hearing this may actually

...