2026 June 30 - Unusually Smooth Sections of Asteroid Itokawa

In today's image, we see the asteroid Itokawa as imaged by the Hayabusa spacecraft back in 2005. This was one of the early sample return missions, returning material from the asteroid to Earth for more detailed study.My podcasts are available in video form through this YouTube Channel.This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.I welcome comments and suggestions about these podcasts. I can be reached here: [email protected] work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.