Earth and Moon

Humans have visited the moon but we’ve never lived there. Could we build a home on our lunar neighbor?

Looking for an escape? Join Molly and co-host Julian as they explore Antarctica! They’ll learn about Antarctica’s massive ice sheets and active volcanoes — plus they’ll meet the largest land animal on the continent!

Satellites are like robots in the sky: they monitor the weather, make GPS possible, and take stunning pictures of outer space! But how exactly do they work?

Sand! We use it to make all kinds of things, from spectacular sandcastles to roads and bridges. But where does it come from? And why is the sand on so many beaches disappearing?

Listener Gideon sent in this brilliant question: “How did ferns survive the dinosaur extinction and are they the same ferns we see now?”

It's just a normal day at Brains On headquarters, until Molly and co-host Aaliyah find Forever Ago host Joy Dolo in the midst of a full-blown stress attack.

The process that turns sand into glass is very cool – or rather, we should say very hot. Very, very, very hot as it turns out. Humans have been turning minerals from the earth’s crust into glass for 3,500 years. Find out how it’s done and how it’s evolved – from blowing glass by hand to a factory that makes hundreds of glass bottles every minute. Plus: The mystery sound!

Find out why the sea is salty!

Living on Earth, it’s hard to imagine there are bits of stars in us, but it’s true!

The ExPLORERR was built to go everywhere. That’s why this vehicle’s full name is: the Extremely Practical Land and Ocean Rover Exploring Remote Realms. And guess what? It has a recording studio built on-board! Good thing, because this episode was recorded while traveling up, up, up a mountain!

Snow days - snow daze - snow dazzle!

What route would you take to walk around the world?

We’re heading to space, and dropping a feather in a few different places to see what happens!

This episode shines a light on crystals, and they’re sparkling right back at us! We’ll zoom way in on a diamond to understand the structure that makes crystals special, and hear about some unexpected crystals, too (hint: chocolate chip cookies contain a few different crystals!). Then, we take a look at how crystals form and get their cool colors. Plus, Marc and Sanden hunt down a hoax about Mesoamerican crystal skulls.

After getting a firsthand look at the history of trash, we’re having visions from garbage’s present and future this week. Producer Kunsang Dorjee visits a landfill to see what happens to our trash after we throw it away, and producer Ruby Guthrie shows us how we can make less trash and dispose the trash we do make in ways that are better for the planet. Plus: we hear from a kid who helped her class produce almost no waste during the school year. And our Moment of Um answers the question: if ants like sweet things, why don’t they attack beehives?

How are mountains made? What causes an earthquake? How does hot lava come bubbling up? The answer in each case is…tectonic plates!

Like an onion, the Earth has layers. In this episode we’ll see if you can dig through those layers to get to the center of the planet. We’ll also hear about the Danish scientist who discovered more about Earth’s core by studying earthquakes. Children’s book author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers stops by to talk about the Earth’s top layer called the crust.