Uranus and Neptune takes center stage this week on planetary radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier.

I'm at Kaplan.

And we're once again taking you to the outer reaches of our

solar system as we talk with planetary scientist Heidi Hamill. She'll tell us about the

amazing advances in Earth-based astronomy that are giving us

unprecedented views of those big blue gas giants beyond Saturn. Bruce Betts will

join us on the phone to provide his latest look at the night sky and there's a lot to see in the next

two weeks including a promising meteor shower.

I bet you're wondering if there could possibly be any other news from around the universe this week.

Why, yes, Virginia, there is.

Tick, tick, just four weeks ago on this program, we heard Alan Stern talking about the

relatively short launch window for his Pluto-Cuiper belt probe.

Well, the start of the mission will be delayed several days while NASA takes another look at the

rocket under New Horizons. The double check should still allow the spacecraft

to save years of travel with a gravity boost from Jupiter.

The Saga of Hyabusa continues, with the spacecraft in safe mode and suffering from several problems.

Japanese mission controllers had no choice but to delay sending the order to return to Earth. It could be 2007 before they can try again.

Details are at planetary.org.

Dust off those old plans of yours for a warp drive.

NASA's National Institute for Advanced Concepts

is once again accepting proposals for funding.

The deadline is February 13, 2006.

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