Today I want to share with you a really cool solar system image I came across on my daily cruise of the blogosphere. It's a linear arrangement of 88 known bodies in the solar system with diameters larger than 200 miles (320 kilometers). It was created as a hobby project by web developer Alan Taylor and posted on his site Kokogiak.com. To fully appreciate Taylor's minor-planet lineup, open it in software that allows you to zoom in and pan across the image.
And here's an interesting tidbit of information posted on the History of Astronomy Discussion Group by space-exploration enthusiast Larry Klaes: Two-hundred years ago last week — March 29, 1807, to be exact — German astronomer Wilhelm Olbers discovered the asteroid Vesta. A proposed NASA mission, Dawn, would orbit Vesta for 9 months in 2010-2011 before heading off to a 2015 rendezvous with 1 Ceres, once considered an asteroid but recently reclassified by the International Astronomical Union as a dwarf planet.