Comets from the Stars, 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.

Were many of the comets circling our son stolen from other stars?

Hal Levison and his colleagues say it's very likely.

He'll be here to explain the findings of an international team of

researchers. Say it ain't so. Emily Lachawala questions the wisdom of a NASA press

release that seems to be preparing us for the possible loss of Mars Exploration

Rover Spirit.

Bill Nye, the science and planetary guy, considers the reality of gravity, while Bruce Betts

and I realize a lifelong dream in this week's

what-up segment, yes we finally worked Lindsay Lohan into the space trivia

contest. Life is good and sore conversations with Emily, the Planetary Society Science and

Technology Coordinator, as well as Mistress of the Society blog. Emily, as always, you've covered

a lot of interesting stuff you and others over the

last week of entries in the blog but I think the story that is really going to

stand out and maybe get people worked up is about spirit. Seems to have gotten you worked up.

Yeah, mostly it's the headline that JPL and NASA released with this week's story about spirit that got me worked up,

which is, and I quote quote NASA's hibernating Mars

rover may not call home. Well it's you know it's a pretty let's just say it's a

downer. The fact of the matter is that you know they've already told us this we already know that it's it's not news and in fact there's very little in the content of this press release that is news.

The one piece of news that there is is that JPL has now started actively hailing spirit

...