BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy 2017: Astronomy and Space on this day

On this day in 1973 – February 15th – Pioneer 10 was the first ever spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt.

Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972 and is is now nearly three times as far away from the Sun as Pluto is.

On this day in 2013 – February 15th – a meteor explosion occurred over Chelyabinsk in Russia causing around 1500 injuries.

The meteoroid was about 20 meters across with a mass of 12,000–13,000 metric tonnes. Fortunately, the explosion occurred high in the atmosphere and the atmosphere absorbed much of the energy. However the shock waves caused a lot of damage and many of the injuries were from flying glass.

On this day in 1996 – February 17th – the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft was launched.

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) did a fly-by of asteroid Mathilde and then went on to study asteroid Eros from Orbit.

On this day in 1930 – February 18th – Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.

Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet for many years, but is now classified as a dwarf planet.

On this day in 1677 – February 18th – Jacques Cassini was born at the Paris Observatory.

He was the son of the director of the observatory Jean Dominique Cassini, with whom he made numerous astronomical observations. Eventually, he took over his father's duties as head of the Paris Observatory and continued the astronomical work.

On this day in 1473 – February 19th – Nicolaus Copernicus was born.

His work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) set out his arguments for a heliocentric (sun-centered) system instead of a geocentric (Earth-centered) system.

On this day in 1986 – February 19th – Mir was launched by the Soviet Union.

Mir was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit. It was first continuously inhabited long-term research station in orbit. The failing station was deorbited in March 2001.

These are such interesting facts. It's lovely that they are a combo of contemporary and historical facts.

On this day in 1965 – February 20th – NASA's Ranger 8 ended its mission by a crash landing on the Moon.

The Ranger program was intended to obtain close-up images of the Moon's surface to help choose landing sites for Apollo missions. Ranger 8 transmitted 7,137 images before its mission ended.