There's big news from the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union 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 of the Planetary Society. Our own Emily Lockwala joins us for an

extended conversation this week. Emily spent some time at last week's annual AGU conference, where she caught the latest science from our

moon, from Mars, and from the moons of Saturn.

Bill Nye, the Science and Planetary Guy, will be along shortly. This week Bill Muses on the profound

meeting of the Sonic Booms that recently shook his Southern California home.

And we'll finish up at the holiday luncheon for the staff of the Planetary Society

where Bruce Betts will tell us about the night sky and get seriously razed by several

special guests. He'll also present us with a new space trivia

challenge that could win you a planetary radio t-shirt and an oceanside photo

and telescope rewards card. Emily includes some results from the Phoenix

Mars Polar Lander Mission in our upcoming AGU discussion, but there's a much more

detailed report on Phoenix in her blog at planetary.org.

It's largely based on principal investigator Peter Smith's long presentation at the conference,

along with sessions delivered by others on Peter's mission team.

If you visit the blog, be sure to check out Emily's December 18 entry.

Every now and then, we are treated to an image from beyond Earth that simply

takes our breath away. This time it's one taken by the Hubble Space

Telescope of Jupiter with its moon Ganymede.

Science is great, but you can't beat a picture like this one if you need something to remind you of what's waiting for us out there among the planets and stars. We also marked the passing of Steve Austro this

week. Some of you will remember our conversation with him about saving the great radio

telescope at Arasebo

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