Our universe is a wild and wonderful place. Join NASA astronauts, scientists and engineers on a new adventure each week — all you need is your curiosity. First-time space explorers welcome.

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Why Beauty is Truth - A short history of symmetry

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Professor Ian Stewart presents a short history of symmetry and how this concept relates to mathematics, physics and the universe around us.

The Numberphile Podcast

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Interviews with people who love numbers and mathematics. Hosted by Brady Haran, maker of the Numberphile series on YouTube.

Houston We Have a Podcast

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From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, explore the world of human spaceflight with NASA each week on the official podcast of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Listen to in-depth conversations with the astronauts, scientists, and engineers who make it possible.

How Webb Illuminates Stars’ Cloudy Origins

September 30, 2025 0:22:43 4.33 MB ( -4.34 MB less) Downloads: 0

In the space between stars, dark clouds of gas, dust, and ice mingle in a chemical laboratory unlike any on Earth. Ewine van Dishoeck, an astronomer who studies molecules in space and who helped develop an instrument aboard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, explains how Webb is revealing new details about the formation of stars and planets. This research could help unlock a key question about Earth: how did our planet end up with water and the ingredients for life?

What Webb Is Teaching Us About Our Solar System

September 23, 2025 0:27:32 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is hard at work answering our biggest questions about the birth of our universe and faraway galaxies. But some astronomers are pointing its powerful eyes much closer to home. In this episode, Caltech astronomer Katherine de Kleer explains how Webb is rewriting our understanding of objects within our solar system–from space rocks in the asteroid belt to the icy and volcanic moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Webb’s Search for Habitable Worlds

September 02, 2025 0:23:43 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

Some exoplanets—like a gas giant with rain made of glass and 5,000-mile-per-hour winds—sound like worlds dreamed up by a science fiction writer. But they’re real. From light-years away, scientists can uncover details about planets orbiting distant stars and even ask whether some exoplanets could support life. Néstor Espinoza, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, explains how NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is revealing new details about exoplanets, especially rocky worlds like Earth.

Webb Series: Finding the First Galaxies

July 29, 2025 0:27:54 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

With the James Webb Space Telescope, we are seeing the early universe like never before. Webb produces beautiful images and detailed scientific data that leave astronomers in awe. In this episode, Mic Bagley, a NASA scientist on the Webb team, guides us through new discoveries made possible by Webb. Mic tells the story of a remarkable galaxy discovered in the early days of Webb’s science mission and explains why Webb is teaching us “everything” about how galaxies form and evolve.

How Lying In Bed For 60 Days Helps Astronauts

June 24, 2025 0:27:17 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

In space, microgravity changes the body. Body fluids shift from the legs toward the head, the back of our eyes flatten, we lose muscle strength, our bones lose some of their density, and even the amount of blood pumped by the heart with each beat drops. To learn more about how microgravity affects the human body and develop new ways to help astronauts stay healthy, scientists are asking dozens of volunteers to spend 60 days in bed with their heads tilted down at a specific angle. This research approach tricks the body into reacting very similarly to how it would if a person was aboard the International Space Station for a longer-term mission. Join Andreas Joshi, a volunteer who agreed to be part of this bedrest work, and two NASA scientists leading the study. They’re investigating different ways to combat space-based muscle loss and improve astronauts’ sense of balance by, among other things, teaching volunteers like Joshi to play video games with their feet.

Cosmic Dawn with Nobel Laureate John Mather

June 04, 2025 0:18:47 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

The James Webb Space Telescope is doing something astronomers dreamed about for decades: peering into our universe’s early past, a period known as cosmic dawn. A new NASA documentary—also called Cosmic Dawn—chronicles the inside story of Webb’s design, construction, and launch. John Mather, who won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics, proposed the telescope and led its science team for decades. In this interview, Mather talks about his life, his research, and the pre-dawn phone call telling him he had won the Nobel Prize. Find more at nasa.gov/cosmicdawn

Earth Series: What's Next for NASA Earth Science

May 20, 2025 0:28:06 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

NASA has a record of Earth observations going back more than 50 years. What might be in store for the next 50 years? In this finale of our Earth series, we hear from two scientists helping to chart the course of NASA Earth science. There are still many unanswered questions about our home planet. As the only planet that we know to have life, studying Earth is also crucial as NASA searches for other habitable worlds.

Earth Series: Monitoring the Air We Breathe

May 06, 2025 0:38:32 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

Take a deep breath, and you’re inhaling oxygen from Earth’s atmosphere. Take a walk outside, and the atmosphere is shielding you from harmful radiation. NASA research provides crucial data to understand air quality and the intricate processes happening in the sky above us. In this episode, hear the inside story of NASA’s research into the ozone layer. Left unchecked, our reliance on ozone-depleting chemicals threatened to expose the entire planet to dangerous UV radiation. We’ll also fly along with Laura Judd, a NASA scientist studying air quality in the U.S. and around the world.

Earth Series: From Space to Your Plate

April 29, 2025 0:31:08 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

Earth has an incredibly varied and ever-changing landscape—jagged mountains, arid deserts, lush rainforests, rolling wheat fields. Before NASA came on the scene, no one was keeping a systematic eye on the ground from above. NASA scientist Brad Doorn explains how one long-running satellite program collects the data farmers need to grow the crops that feed the world.

Earth Series: The Ocean, Now in Full Color

April 22, 2025 0:34:55 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

Life all over the planet—even far from the coasts—depends on the oceans. A pair of NASA satellites, PACE and SWOT, is giving us a fresh look at Earth’s water. PACE tracks color changes driven by tiny plankton, which give us a big-picture view of ocean life. By measuring sea level height from space, SWOT shows ocean currents and other features in new detail. NASA scientists Cecile Rousseaux, Kelsey Bisson, and Josh Willis dive into new research with a lot of color and a little bit of rock and roll.

Earth Series: How NASA Sees Our Blue Marble

April 15, 2025 0:28:27 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

NASA is an exploration agency, and one of our missions is to know our home. In the 1960s, NASA astronauts orbiting the Moon captured a revelatory view of Earth. Today, NASA explores our home planet with a fleet of dozens of spacecraft. In this episode–the first in a miniseries all about Earth–we take in the view from space with Karen St. Germain, the director of NASA’s Earth Science Division.

Earth, Through NASA's Eyes

April 08, 2025 0:03:55 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

There’s one planet NASA studies more than any other: Earth. With our unique vantage point from space, NASA collects information about our home in ways nobody else can. In this podcast miniseries, celebrate our home planet by learning how NASA studies Earth—including unique views of ocean color and sea level, land data that help farmers improve crop production, and researching our atmosphere from the air we breathe to layers high above us that protect every living thing on the planet.

Curious Universe Live: Art and Science with Astronaut Matthew Dominick

April 02, 2025 0:29:14 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

NASA has a long history of bringing together science, engineering and art. Space exploration is a human endeavor—one that requires creativity. In this special live episode, NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick and comedian and musician Reggie Watts talk flow states, aircraft ejector seats and more. Plus, a new NASA tool that lets you make music from iconic Hubble Space Telescope imagery.

Inside the Team That Keeps Hubble Flying

March 14, 2025 0:38:59 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

When it launched in 1990, NASA expected the Hubble Space Telescope to last for about 15 years. Thirty-five years later, Hubble is still showing us the universe as no other telescope can. Go behind the scenes with Morgan Van Arsdall, deputy operations manager for Hubble, on an audio tour of Hubble’s control center. Morgan’s team keeps Hubble operating smoothly, and when something goes wrong, they snap into action to fix it. Plus, hear how Hubble tag-teams with newer observatories—including the James Webb Space Telescope—and continues to push the frontiers of astronomy.

How NASA Found the Ingredients For Life on an Asteroid

January 29, 2025 0:27:38 0.0 MB Downloads: 0

How did life begin? It’s one of science’s biggest questions, but it’s impossible to answer on Earth, where ancient clues have been buried by the planet’s shifting surface. Instead, scientists are looking beyond our own planet, to asteroids like Bennu, a distant fragment of a lost world. In 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected a sample of Bennu’s surface and brought it back to Earth. Ever since, scientists have been hard at work studying the fragments of asteroid Bennu. Now, they’re ready to reveal the results—our best look yet at a time capsule from the early solar system that once fostered the ingredients for life.