You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey, SureWavers, Regina Barber here.

And it's time for my favorite monthly episode, our space news segment, Spacing Out with Gina.

We're here today with my space buddy, my partner in spacing out crime, all things considered hosts.

Scott Detrow, welcome back to the show, Scott.

I'm excited to be here since we last taped. I now have a giant picture of the moon at my desk,

and I love it. You do. I've seen it. It's big. And joining us today, Scott, is our producer,

Burley McCoy. Burley, welcome to your first spacing out with Gina. Hey, Gina. Hey, Scott. I'm excited to be here. It sounds like my jam. I'm a big nerd. I'm excited. I am excited. You're here. Welcome. She is a big nerd because she's the other PhD scientist on Shortwave. So she's going to feel right at home in our nerd space, I think. You know? I agree. I'll just represent all the non-PHD

holders out there and do my best. I have a question for both of you, though. Yes. Have you seen

any of the Transformer movies? Of course. I haven't seen any of them. Oh. Have you, Burley? Oh, I've

definitely seen some and they were cool at the time, but like I think they're kind of forgettable.

I don't know.

It's true.

No hate mail, please.

It's true.

But, you know, just to link all of this together, our first story in this segment is about Transformers on the moon.

But I'm going to pop your bubble a little, Scott.

It's not about Optimus Prime.

They're very different. But hopefully equally as cool. Are they still robots in disguise?

Yes, they still shape ship. Oh, okay. I'll take that. They're really small. They're really cute.

They're round little guys about the size of a baseball. Essentially, they rolled out of this moonlander,

and each half of the sphere moves outward, kind of expanding, revealing this cute little camera in the center, and the halves are now spinning wheels. Okay, that's even better than a transformer. So it's like, like, it's like a little car that rolls around then? Yeah, sort of. Okay. They kind of waddle because they can kind of waddle over hard terrain and navigate. They navigate on their own. And this was a test for future explorations. Oh my God, waddling around. This reminds me of my toddler a little bit, like always exploring, always expanding, which brings me to our next topic, the expansion of the universe. Oh, I'm just going to applaud that really smooth transition. Congratulations.

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