Space Studies Board Chair Charlie Kennel this week on planetary Radio. Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final

frontier and sometimes back home again. I'm at Kaplan with the second

installment of our special Earth observation coverage, this time featuring the new chair

of the United States Space Studies Board Dr. Charles Kenel. We'll ask him about threats to the future of our ability to monitor our own planet from space, why this is so important and how other nations are getting involved.

Bill Nye is thinking about other nations too and he offers their space programs a word or

two of encouragement in this week's commentary. Emily Lochuwalla gets to the molten core of the matter and how these

roiling dynamos power planetary magnetic fields.

Finally, Bruce Betts and I will go out in the midday sun to enjoy a what's up look at the night sky.

Magnetic fields and a particularly beautiful feature of the night sky have come together in an announcement by NASA.

After thousands of years of human history we finally

know what powers the Aurora Borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, or for

you Southerners, the Aurora Australis.

The Themis constellation of satellites working with ground observers

has learned that the culprits are magnetic lines of force

snapping like whips above the Earth's atmosphere.

By the way, this Themis is not to be confused with the famous instrument on the Mars Odyssey

spacecraft.

You can read the full story at planetary

planetary radio space helmet goes to Gogeron of the Music Radio Service in Stockholm.

He pointed us to a BBC story about the unveiling of a joint European Russian human spacecraft

design that may replace the aged but reliable Soyuz capsule.

We've got the link at planetary.org.

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