Western Worlds off to a great start!

This past monday, we had our big debut and I need to thank you all for listening in. Our producer over at AFM crunched the numbers today and estimates that our first episode had a listenership of nearly 20,000 people! That astounds me - I can barely believe it! So thanks for listening in. And thanks again to York Universe for their great lead-in! I, and the rest of the WW team, will do our best to continue to provide you with an engaging look into planetary science and exploration along with the people who practise it.

If you missed our first episode, you can download a podcast of WW101.

Wondering what the first one was all about? Well wonder no more! My introduction can be found beneath the cut. Don't miss us next week on Monday when we'll have Paul Delaney on the show.

WW101: How Lucky We Are

"How lucky we are to live in this time; the first moment in human history when we are, in fact, visiting other worlds." You’re listening to Western Worlds!

Hello and welcome to the premiere of Western Worlds, the newest AFM*Original show heard 10 PM Eastern Time Mondays, that’s 3 AM UTC Tuesdays right here on Astronomy.fm. My name is Dr. John and each week you can look forward to a new conversation in planetary science and exploration from the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration, CPSX, located at the beautiful Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.

The quote we started with tonight is from Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” series. It’s fitting then that our background music tonight is “Alpha” by Vangellis, the same music that plays as the evolution of life unfolds in the Cosmos episode “One voice in the cosmic fugue.”

Since this is our first show, let me tell you how Western Worlds will work: each half hour show will feature an interview with someone notable from our field. That could be a planetary scientist working on a space mission, an engineer developing a new exploration technology or an educator sharing the wonders of our solar system with you, the public.

We hope that you will find these interviews fascinating. I know we will. In fact, we’ve set aside the last few minutes of every show to talk about them amongst ourselves. I’m particularly looking forward to that part because, here at CPSX, we’ve got all kinds of researchers: planetary geologists, astrobiologists, aerospace engineers, atmospheric physicists and astronomers – just to name a few. Because of that variety of specialization each of our talented co-hosts brings something different to that roundtable discussion.

I’m excited – this is going to be fun. And I’d like to invite you along for the ride! Won’t you join us as we explore Western Worlds?

Without further ado, let me introduce our first guest. Tonight we start things off with a Bang as one of our co-hosts, Raymond Francis, sits down with Dr. Gordon Osinski, a world-renowned expert on impact cratering and acting head of the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration right here in London, Ontario.