[Thursday, June 1, 2006] The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa hovered over the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa last fall, taking up-close measurements and photographs. Then it swooped down for a brief landing and the first-ever sample attempt on an asteroid.

[Saturday, June 3, 2006] Although we specifically decided not to target any asteroid, after launch we did conduct a thorough search for chance encounters along our trajectory. We found several such opportunities back in February.

[Monday, June 12, 2006] The Outer Planets Assessment Group is a NASA-supported forum for scientists and engineers to discuss exploration of the outer solar system and to enhance communication between community and NASA.

[Thursday, June 15, 2006] Three new objects locked into roughly the same orbit as Neptune--called "Trojan" asteroids--have been found by researchers from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) and the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii.

[Friday, June 16, 2006] It's a small object with big news for the New Horizons team: the first spacecraft to Pluto tested its tracking and imaging capabilities this week on asteroid 2002 JF56, a relatively tiny space rock orbiting in the asteroid belt.

[Thursday, June 22, 2006] The names Nix and Hydra have been approved for the two small satellites of Pluto discovered in May 2005. The IAU, the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies, approved the names this week.

[Friday, June 30, 2006] The student-built science instrument on NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto has been renamed to honor one of astronomy's most famous students – the "little girl" who named the ninth planet more than 75 years ago.