India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe will fire a rocket Saturday, November 8, to insert itself into orbit. As I sat down to prepare a magazine news article about the mission earlier this week, I found myself lacking a decent piece of space art of the probe. A web search led me not to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which lofted the craft, but to a talented space enthusiast in England named Doug Ellison . He kindly provided the image of...

Earlier today, planetary scientists discussed preliminary findings from the MESSENGER spacecraft’s second flyby of Mercury. The October 6 encounter revealed about 30 percent of the planet previously unseen by spacecraft — an area larger than South America. MIT researcher Maria Zuber spoke about results from the laser altimeter used to measure topography. Her biggest surprise: The thin strip of area surveyed seen during the January flyby. Brian Anderson...

In this exclusive to Astronomy.com, science writer Lauren Cahoon shares the sights and sounds of the 2008 Division for Planetary Science meeting. Take it away, Lauren: It’s been an eventful 5 days at the 40th Division for Planetary Sciences meeting, with roughly 800 astronomers from all over the world convening in the small town of Ithaca, New York. While there have been hundreds of intriguing talks, I’ve been forced to select a sample that looked...

Thanks to Ron Dantowitz and Marek Kozubal at the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Massachusetts, for sending us these two images of 2008 TC3 . Related: First images of asteroid 2008 TC3

If you want to witness something historic, get on the next flight to Sudan. That’s where a unique meteorological event may take place late tonight. Astronomer Rich Kowalski of the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson discovered asteroid 2008 TC3 last night. And astronomers predict that tonight, on October 7 Africa time, the object will enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up in a spectacular fireball. The asteroid is only a few meters across at most, so it...

Next week, Astronomy magazine’s latest special issue hits newsstands, and it’s one I’ve been looking forward to seeing published since I started working here almost 4 months ago. The Solar System was one of the first projects I got to work on, which by that time meant reading all the stories and checking the layouts for any minor errors. So, it was really as if I were getting a sneak peek at the final product. And by doing so, I got a glimpse of how...

Last week , I told you we would show you a new map of Mercury based on the January MESSENGER flyby. Here it is, kindly provided by one of NASA’s master mappers, Robert Gaskell of the Planetary Science Institute in Altadena, California. This image is an anaglyph — a flat image that simulates a three-dimensional view — of the fault scarp Beagle Rupes as it cuts across the crater Sveinsdóttir. The area shown here is about 160 miles (257 kilometers) square...

Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see Jupiter, M57, and NGC 1 during the next few days. Targets for August 22–28 Naked eye: Jupiter Small telescope : M57, the Ring Nebula 8-inch or larger telescope: NGC 1 --Begin transcript-- Just starting out? Let’s get started with this week’s naked-eye object. And it’s an easy one — Jupiter . All you have to do is look toward the south after sunset. If your sky is clear, you’ll spot Jupiter blazing...

In centuries past, explorers would visit terra incognita — unknown lands — and bring new information back home to feed the master mappers of Europe. It hasn’t changed all that much — except the explorers are robot spacecraft and the master mappers of the solar system are scientists. Late Tuesday afternoon, I saw a NASA press release about one of NASA’s master mappers, Robert Gaskell. He’s a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson...

With a statue of Lenin in the foreground, Boris Stromar imaged the eclipse from Novosibirsk, Russia. It looked grim the day before and grim the day after. But we stood under a blistering hot sky near Novosibirsk, Siberia, with nary a cloud in the sky on eclipse day. Never have I seen such perfect eclipse weather. The eclipse was beautiful, lasting 2 minutes 20 seconds, for our intrepid 160 travelers who came along with Astronomy magazine and MWT Associates...