SUNSET: 
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Searching for Intelligence on Earth
Space exploration can serve as an antidote to war. And vice versa.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Grave Expectations
We can try to devise rules for how detecting alien life should unfold, but E.T. might not play along.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Interstellar Stowaways
Could microorganisms travel between the stars?
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Many Happy Returns
Venus’s eight-year cycle has the author dreaming of 2029.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Life Beyond Earth?
By century’s end, the author thinks we’ll have an answer to this question. But what kind of answer?
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
The Prime of Their Lives
The strange cycles of cicadas offer timely insight into the search for ET.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Eavesdropping on Mars
The most compelling audio the Perseverance rover will record might well be the sounds it generates itself.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
The Cosmic Conjunction
When the world’s got you down, look up and tune into orbital time.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Adiós, Arecibo
On the painful loss of an iconic Space Age observatory.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Venus Surprise
Will phosphine be the “Mars rock” of our sister planet?
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
My Virtual Comet Sighting
There’s nothing like being there, but these days we can all find a pretty good view.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Not From Around Here
NASA’s rovers have found meteorites on Mars that came from elsewhere. What secrets do they hold about Martian history and climate?
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Venus Is Dead. Long Live Venus.
In which I attempt a contrarian argument against my own contrarian argument.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Mars Coughs Up Another Mystery
What’s behind the strangely fluctuating levels of oxygen on the Red Planet?
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Mission to an Interstellar Object
It’s time to visit a body from another star system — without leaving ours.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
A Fitting Apollo Monument
Fifty years after the fact, the National Mall hosts a spectacular, and deeply moving, celebration.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Sea Change on Venus
Tidal drag from a putative ocean might have helped cool our sister planet for billions of years.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Can a Planet Think? The Gaia Hypothesis, Rethought
Humans have irrevocably changed the planet. Have those processes gone so far that Earth’s biosphere has begun to resemble a human brain?
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
One Small Step for Plantkind
With a seed germinated on the lunar farside, Earth’s biosphere made its first tentative foray into the cosmos.
Cosmic Relief with David Grinspoon
Sudden Impact: What Greenland's Crater Means for Our Planet's History
The discovery of a recent huge meteor crater beneath Greenland’s ice sheet has reignited a debate over cosmic influences.