I love this asteroid. It's just so weird-looking. And yet it may be quite typical of the solar system -- there are probably many more objects in the solar system that look like misshapen, bouldery Itokawa than look like anything else ever visited by...

This week's Carnival of Space may be found at Steve's Astro Corner. Since I haven't explained this in a while, a blog carnival is a listing of recent entries by numerous different bloggers on some theme, and it is usually hosted by a different blogger...

Jupiter has been high overhead at sunset for several months, a brilliant light that's easy to spot even when the sky is still bright at dusk; but it's now moving quickly to the west as Earth speeds ahead of Jupiter's more stately march around the Sun. ...

ERRATUM: Woops. I made a great big error on the launch vehicle for Galileo -- it was, in fact, the Shuttle. Thanks to Bruce Moomaw for the correction below! My last podcast for 365 Days of Astronomy aired over the weekend: "Galileo and the Moons of...

Umbriel is the darkest moon in a pretty dark place in the solar system, the Uranus system. Pretty much everything we know about its surface is based on about 10 images captured by Voyager, which show only its southern hemisphere because it was summer...