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On this day in 1801 - January 1st - Sicilian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres.

Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered. It's now classified as a dwarf planet.

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On this day in 1925 - January 1st - a ground-breaking paper by Edwin Hubble was read to the American Astronomical Society.

The paper showed that the Andromeda "nebula" wasn't an object in the Milky Way, but a galaxy in its own right.

This is a copy of the photographic plate on which Hubble discovered a Cepheid variable - marked VAR! - in the Andromeda galaxy. Using this, he was able to determine that it was too far away to be located in our own galaxy.

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On this day in 1900 - January 2nd - Leslie Peltier was born.

Harlow Shapley once described Peltier as "the world's greatest non-professional astronomer". Over his sixty years of observing he made more than 132,000 variable star observations. He also co-discovered 12 comets, 10 of which bear his name.

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On this day in 1920 - January 2nd - American author Isaac Asimov was born.

By profession Asimov was a professor of biochemistry, and also a prolific writer on many subjects. He's probably best remembered for his works of science fiction and of popular science.

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On this day in 1959 - January 2nd - the Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 was launched.

Luna 1 was supposed to impact the Moon, but due to a launch error missed it. It was still the first spacecraft leave Earth orbit and the first to get close to the Moon. In addition, when it missed the Moon it ended up going into orbit around the Sun. It still orbits between Earth and Mars.

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On this day in 1972 - January 2nd - NASA's Mariner 9 began mapping Mars.

Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. It had arrived a month before, but with a dust storm covered almost all of the planet, the mapping didn't begin until the dust had settled.

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On this day in 2004 - January 2nd - NASA's Stardust spacecraft encountered comet Wild 2.

Its primary mission was to collect dust samples from the comet's coma, as well as samples of cosmic dust, and return them to Earth.

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On this day in 2004 - January 3rd - NASA's Spirit rover landed on Mars.

The mission was planned to last 90 Martian days, but Spirit collected data for over six years.

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On this day in 1797 - January 4th - Wilhelm Beer was born.

Beer was an amateur astronomer who with Johann Heinrich Mädler published the first map of the Moon (Mappa Selenographica). The pair also made a map of Mars and calculated the planet's rotation period to within 0.1 second of today's figure.

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On this day in 1643 - January 4th - Isaac Newton was born.

By the Julian calendar in use when Isaac Newton was born, he was born on Christmas Day 1642. That's the equivalent of January 4th on the Gregorian calendar now in use.

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On this day in 2005 - January 5th - UB313 (Eris) was discovered.

The discovery of a body possibly bigger than Pluto set off a debate that ended up with both Pluto and Eris categorized as dwarf planets.

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On this day in 1892 - January 5th - the first successful photograph was taken of an aurora.

Early cameras couldn't catch the dim light of an aurora and long exposures don't work on something that moves. German physicist Martin Brendel and a fellow scientist on an expedition in northern Norway took the first successful image and thereby revolutionized the study of the northern lights.

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On this day in 1998 - January 6th - NASA's Lunar Prospector was launched.

The mission was designed to investigate the Moon from a low polar orbit, including mapping the surface composition and locating lunar resources, and measuring magnetic and gravity fields.

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On this day in 1610 - January 7th - Galileo wrote the first letter in which he describes his observations of the Moon through a telescope.

Galileo's studies showed that the Moon was not the perfect sphere that people believed in at that time. The surface was uneven with mountains, plains and valleys.

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On this day in 1610 - January 7th - Galileo first saw three of the moons of Jupiter.

The three objects that he saw through the telescope near Jupiter were the moons now known as Callisto, Io and Europa, three of the four Galilean moons.

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On this day in 1942 - January 8th - Stephen Hawking was born.

Hawking is possibly the most famous living scientist. For thirty years he held the prestigious post of Lucasian Professor at Cambridge, though he retired a number of years ago. (Isaac Newton also once held this chair.) He's best known for his work on black holes.

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On this day in 1587 - January 8th - Johannes Fabricius was born.

Fabricius was a Frisian/German astronomer, eldest son of David Fabricius who was also an astronomer. In their solar observing they discovered sunspots about the same time and independently of Galileo.

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On this day in 1839 - January 9th - Thomas Henderson published his determination of the distance to Alpha Centauri.

Henderson had been the first to succeed in using stellar parallax to calculate the distance to a fixed star, but had delayed publishing his results and not gotten the credit.

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On this day in 1946 - January 10th - The US Army Signal Corps had the first successful echo detection of a radar signal bounced off the Moon.

It was part of the first experiment in radar astronomy, a technique later used to map Venus.

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On this day in 1787 - January 11th - William Herschel discovered the Uranian moons Titania and Oberon.

William Herschel didn't name the moons of the planet he discovered. His son John named them.

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On this day in 1907 - January 12th - Sergei Korolev was born.

Korolev was the mastermind behind the development of the Soviet space program. Even his name was a state secret and he was only referred to as the Chief Designer. Find out more about the Soviet space program.

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On this day in 2005 - January 12th - NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft was launched.

Deep Impact was the first space mission designed to study the interior composition of a comet.

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On this day in 1610 - January 13th – Galileo was able to identify all four of Jupiter's large moons.

The fourth moon was the one now named Ganymede. Click to find out more about Jupiter's Galilean Moons.

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On this day in 1978 - January 13th – NASA selected the first women as astronaut trainees.

In 1983 Sally Ride became the first American woman to go into space, only twenty years after Valentina Tereshkova's flight.

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On this day in 2005 - January 14th – ESA's Huygens probe landed on Saturn's moon Titan.

Huygens made an important contribution to our knowledge of Titan. Here are 4 pictures taken at different altitudes as the probe approached the surface of the moon.




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On this day in 1916 - January 14th – four women finally won the right to be elected to fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society in London, recognizing their achievement in astronomy and geophysics.

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On this day in 2006 - January 15th – NASA's Stardust spacecraft returned with samples of comet dust.

Stardust was the first sample return mission to a comet.

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On this day in 2015 - January 16th – the British Beagle 2 lander was found on Mars.

Beagle 2 was last heard from on Christmas Day 2003. We now know that the entry, descent and landing sequence worked. However it failed to deploy correctly and was unable to communicate. Beagle 2 - Lost and Found

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On this day in 2002 - January 18th – Gemini South Observatory was dedicated in Chile.

Together with the Gemini North Observatory in Hawaii they give almost complete coverage of the sky.

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On this day in 1747 - January 19th – Johann Bode was born.

His name lives on in "Bode's Law", but he was a celestial cartographer who, amazingly, created two influential celestial atlases.

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On this day in 1851 - January 19th – Jacobus Kapteyn was born.

He was a Dutch astronomer best known for his studies of the Milky Way. He discovered evidence for galactic rotation.

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On this day in 2006 - January 19th – NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was launched.

New Horizons has studied Pluto and its moons, and is now on its way to another Kuiper Belt object.

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On this day in 2014 - January 20th - ESA's Rosetta spacecraft awoke from a deep space hibernation of over thirty months.

Rosetta historic mission saw her rendezvous with a comet, put a lander on its surface, and follow the comet as it went around the Sun.

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On this day in 1930 - January 20th - Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin was born.

The second man to step onto the Moon has been an astronaut, Air Force combat pilot, aerial gunnery instructor and flight commander. His doctoral thesis at MIT was on techniques for manned orbital rendezvous.

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On this day in 1573 - January 20th - Simon Marius was born.

Marius was a German astronomer who claimed he had seen Jupiter's moons before Galileo. Galileo's documentation was more extensive and published first, but the suggestions Marius made for naming the four large moons were eventually adopted.

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On this day in 2003 - January 22nd - Pioneer 10's last signal was received.

Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt and later the first to pass the orbit of Pluto. Originally designed for a 21-month mission, it lasted more than 30 years.

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On this day in 1736 – January 25th – Joseph Lagrange was born.

Lagrange was one of the great mathematicians of the 18th century. His work included major contributions to physics and astronomy. He's best known now for his identification of equilibrium points between the gravity of the Earth and that the Sun. NASA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) sits at one of these points.

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On this day in 1983 – January 25th – the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) was launched.

IRAS, a joint project of NASA (USA), NIVR (Netherlands) and SERC (UK), was the first space telescope to carry out a survey of the whole night sky at infrared wavelengths.

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On this day in 1994 – January 25th – Clementine was launched.

Over a period of nearly four months the US spacecraft Clementine made scientific observations of the Moon. In addition, Clementine was used as a test of the effects on sensors and components of extended exposure to space.

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On this day in 2004 – January 25th – the Mars rover Opportunity landed on the red planet.

The mission was designed to last 90 Martian days - Opportunity is still operational.

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On this day in 1967 – January 27th – the crew of Apollo 1, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee, died when fire swept through the command module during a preflight test.

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What words can one use here? All I can think of seem inadequate.

Anyway Mona, it reminds me of the fragility of life, it emphasises for me yet again that life is precious and that we should be thankful for the sacrifices made by many in the search for the future.

Thanks for reminding me.

Cheers


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On this day in 1829 – January 27th – pioneering astrophotographer Isaac Roberts was born.

Roberts was a Welsh amateur astronomer, and a fellow of the Royal Geological Society. He developed a photographic technique which made it possible to capture faint objects. Roberts's photograph of the Andromeda Nebula showed the spiral structure of M31, which was startling at the time.

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On this day in 1941 – January 27th – New Zealand astrophysicist Beatrice Hill Tinsley was born.

Tinsley began her career late and died in 1981, but in the intervening years she revolutionized our view of galactic evolution. Her pioneering work continues to be regularly cited by researchers. In 2016 a Google doodle celebrated the 75th anniversary of her birth.

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On this day in 1611 – January 28th – Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius was born.

Johannes Hevelius studied sunspots, produced a lunar chart, discovered several comets, and produced an influential star atlas. He was one of the most influential astronomers of the 17th century.

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On this day in 1986 – January 28th – NASA's space shuttle Challenger exploded soon after launch killing the seven crew members.

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On this day in 2003 – February 1st – NASA's space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, killing the seven crew members.

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On this day in 1995 – February 3rd – the "Near-Mir" space shuttle mission was launched.

STS-63 Discovery carried out the first rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia's space station Mir, but the shuttle didn't dock with Mir.

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On this day in 1995 – February 3rd – the first space shuttle mission with a female pilot was launched.

Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot a space shuttle. Four years later she became the first woman commander of a space shuttle.

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On this day in 1906 – February 4th – American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh was born.

Tombaugh worked at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, where in 1930, he discovered Pluto.

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On this day in 1966 – February 4th – the Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 made the first successful soft landing on the Moon.

Luna 9 also sent back the first pictures taken on the Moon's surface.

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On this day in 1963 – February 5th – astronomer Maarten Schmidt had a sudden insight that led to a new understanding of quasars, which had been a mystery.

Schmidt realized that a quasar wasn't an object in our Galaxy and its unusual spectrum wasn't full of unknown elements. It was mostly composed of hydrogen that was redshifted because of its enormous distance away in an expanding Universe.

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On this day in 1999 – February 7th – Stardust was launched.

This NASA spacecraft's primary mission was to collect dust samples from the coma of comet Wild 2, as well as samples of cosmic dust, and return them to Earth for analysis.

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On this day in 1826 – February 8th – Jules Verne was born.

Verne was a major European literary figure best known in the English-speaking world for his exciting and influential adventure stories, many of which are considered early science fiction. Ray Bradbury said "We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne."

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On this day in 2010 – February 11th – NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was launched.

The SDO observes the Sun in order to understand the ways in which it affects the Earth, such as space weather.

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On this day in 2001 – February 12th – NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft landed on the asteroid 433 Eros.

NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) was the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on an asteroid.

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On this day in 1852 – February 13th – Johan Dreyer was born in Copenhagen.

Dreyer was a prominent astronomer and writer. He was born in Denmark but became a British citizen. Dreyer is best remembered for his New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (based on the Herschel catalogues of nebulae). The catalogue numbers are still in use, prefixed by NGC.

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On this day in 2000 – February 14th – NASA's NEAR Shoemaker was inserted into orbit around the asteroid Eros.

Eros was named after the god of love, son of Venus. NEAR orbited it for almost a year.

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On this day in 1990 – February 14th – NASA's Voyager 1 took the Family Portrait, looking inward from 6 billion km away.

Earth is only a pixel, christened by Carl Sagan "the pale blue dot".

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On this day in 1564 – February 15th – Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy.

Galileo was one of the first to use a telescope to observe the heavens. He's known for his work in physics, astronomical discoveries, and, of course, his getting in trouble with the Church.

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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.

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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.

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On this day in 1948 – February 16th – Gerard Kuiper discovered Miranda, a moon of Uranus.

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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.

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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.


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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.

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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.

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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.

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


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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.

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On this day in 1965 – February 20th – John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.

Glenn's space capsule Friendship 7 took him around the Earth three times before its splashdown.

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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.

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On this day in 1990 – February 23rd – Pioneer 11 crossed the orbit of Neptune on its way out of the Solar System.

The spacecraft went beyond the most distant planet, but since there are dwarf planets and other objects out there, it didn't leave the Solar System.

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On this day in 1987 – February 23rd – the light from supernova SN 1987A reached Earth.

The supernova occurred in the Tarantula Nebula in our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. It was the closest supernova seen in nearly four hundred years. Visible to the unaided eye in the southern hemisphere, it has greatly increased our understanding of this spectacular phenomenon.

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On this day in 1945 – February 23rd – Svetlana Gerasimenko was born.

Gerasimenko was the co-discoverer of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the comet which was studied by the Rosetta mission. Both the Rosetta spacecraft and the lander Philae are on the comet as it continues its orbit.

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On this day in 1968 – February 24th – the discovery of the first pulsar was announced.

A pulsar is a fast-rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. We can only detect it when it's pointing towards us, rather like a lighthouse, so it seems to pulse. A neutron star is the remnant of a massive star following the collapse of its core in a supernova explosion.

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On this day in 1897 – February 27th – French astronomer Bernard Lyot was born.

Bernard Lyot's work brought him major international awards. His most important contributions to astronomy were in solar observing, especially the invention of the coronagraph which makes it possible to observe the Sun's corona without waiting for a total eclipse.

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On this day in 1927 – March 1st – American astronomer George Abell was born.

Abell's catalogue of galaxy clusters from the Palomar Sky Survey remains an important piece of work. But in addition to being an active professional astronomer, he was a teacher, administrator, writer and science popularizer.

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On this day in 1966 – March 1st – the Soviet probe Venera 3 landed on Venus, the first Earthly craft to land on another planet.

The probe was entering the atmosphere as ground control lost contact with the orbiting spacecraft. Therefore any data it may have collected couldn't be transmitted.

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On this day in 1982 – March 1st – the Soviet probe Venera 13 landed on Venus.

The lander was the first one to transmit color pictures. It was designed to last on the surface of Venus for half an hour, but transmitted data for over two hours.

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On this day in 2004 – March 2nd – ESA launched its Rosetta spacecraft.

Rosetta would travel for ten years and billions of miles in order to rendezvous with a comet, accompany it as it moved through the inner Solar System past the Sun, and deploy a lander.

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Mona, I would have loved to be on board for one of your talks. The Princess Royal offered Discovery at Sea, "Star Gazing" put on by the cruise staff. <SIGH>

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Angie, Cunard's Queen Mary 2 gets (not every voyage) speakers from the Royal Astronomical Society. But even at Cuanrd prices (astronomical!) they don't give much advance notice about which speakers will be be on board. I know a number of astronomers who do cruises for different lines, giving talks and - weather permitting - star gazing on deck. But even though astronomy is popular, it gets treated rather casually by the cruise lines and the staff.

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On this day in 1972 – March 2nd – NASA's Pioneer 10 was launched.

Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to cross the Asteroid Belt and to complete the first mission to Jupiter. It's now about 118 au from the Sun, heading out of the Solar System in the direction of the constellation Taurus.

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On this day in 1923 – March 4th – Patrick Moore, English amateur astronomer, writer and broadcaster, was born.

He was best known as the enthusiastic and knowledgeable presenter of the BBC TV program The Sky at Night, which he began in 1957. Although Sir Patrick is no longer with us, the program goes on and is the world's longest-running television series.

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On this day in 1512 – March 5th – Gerardus Mercator was born.

Mercator was a German-Flemish cartographer, geographer and cosmographer. He created the 1569 world map based on a new projection that represented sailing courses of constant bearing as straight lines—an innovation that is still employed in nautical charts.

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On this day in 1937 – March 6th – Valentina Tereshkova was born.

Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. She was a Soviet cosmonaut who spent three days orbiting in Vostok 6.

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On this day in 1787 – March 6th – Joseph Fraunhofer was born.


Fraunhofer was a German optician who was known for the quality of his optical glass and excellent telescope objectives. His name is still known today for his discovery of the dark absorption lines - known as Fraunhofer lines - in the Sun's spectrum.



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On this day in 2009 – March 6th – NASA launched its planet-hunter Kepler.


As of February 2017 Kepler had found nearly 2500 confirmed exoplanets and four thousand possibles for further investigation.

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On this day in 2015 – March 6th – NASA'S Dawn spacecraft went into orbit around dwarf planet Ceres.

Dawn had already orbited the asteroid Vesta before being the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet.

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On this day in 1792 – March 7th – John Herschel was born.

Son of the discoverer of Uranus, John Herschel was one of the 19th century's most distinguished individuals. He was a brilliant mathematician, chemist and astronomer, as well as an accomplished artist, musician and linguist.

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On this day in 1837 – March 7th – Henry Draper was born.

Henry Draper was a pioneer of astrophotography. Following his early death, his wife Anna donated money to Harvard College Observatory to complete his catalogue of stellar spectra. If you see a deep sky object named with an “HD” prefix, it refers to this catalogue.

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On this day in 1979 – March 8th – active volcanoes were found on Jupiter's moon Io.

Voyager 1 took the pictures that showed eruptions on Io, the first ones ever discovered on a body other than Earth.

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On this day in 1564 – March 9th – David Fabricius was born.

Along with his son Johannes, David Fabricius discovered Mira, the first known periodic variable star. They also made the first confirmed observations of sunspots.

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That was certainly a while ago. It is amazing that they made those discoveries.


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On this day in 1934 – March 9th – Yuri Gagarin was born.

A soviet pilot and cosmonaut, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was the first human to journey into outer space.

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On this day in 1820 – March 10th – the Astronomical Society of London was formed.

The organization later became the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).

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On this day in 1977 – March 10th – rings were discovered around the planet Uranus.

The rings were found by a team of astronomers intending to use the occultation by Uranus of star SAO 158687 to study the planet's atmosphere.

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On this day in 2006 – March 10th – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) arrived at Mars.

Eleven years later it's still return high quality images of Mars.

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On this day in 1811 – March 11th – French mathematician and astronomer Urbain LeVerrier was born.

LeVerrier's calculations enabled the Berlin Observatory to discover the planet Neptune.

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On this day in 1835 – March 12th – Canadian-American mathematician and astronomer Simon Newcomb was born.

Newcomb made important contributions to international timekeeping and other fields in applied mathematics such as economics and statistics. He was a professor at the United States Naval Observatory and at Johns Hopkins.

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On this day in 1781 – March 13th – William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.

All of the other planets known at that time had been known since antiquity.

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On this day in 1855 – March 13th – Percival Lowell was born.

Lowell was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona and began the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death. Lowell was also convinced there were canals on Mars.

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On this day in 1855 – March 14th – Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli was born.

Schiaparelli produced the most detailed map of Mars ever published, and it became a standard reference in planetary cartography. When he referred to canali (channels) on Mars, it was translated into English as canals, and Percival Lowell was convinced that there was an advanced civilization on Mars.

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On this day in 1879 – March 14th – Albert Einstein was born.

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On this day in 1935 – March 14th – Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan was born.

Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, was the last man on the Moon.

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On this day in 2016 – March 14th – part 1 of the ExoMars astrobiology mission was launched.

ExoMars is a joint ESA/Roscosmos mission. The launch of the spacecraft containing ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Schiaparelli lander was successful. (TGO is now in orbit around Mars, but the lander crashed.)

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On this day in 1932 – March 15th – Apollo astronaut Alan Bean was born.

Bean was the Apollo 12 lunar module pilot, and the fourth person to walk on the Moon.

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On this day in 1713 – March 15th – French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille was born.

Lacaille was one of astronomy's greats. He surveyed nearly 10,000 stars in the southern hemisphere, and invented fourteen new constellations still in use today.

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On this day in 1750 – March 16th – Caroline Herschel was born.

Caroline Herschel was an assistant to her brother William. She also discovered eight comets and a number of deep-sky objects. Caroline Herschel was also the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society for her work.

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On this day in 2011 – March 17th – NASA's Messenger spacecraft went into orbit around Mercury.

Messenger was the first craft ever to orbit Mercury.

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On this day in 1965 – March 18th – the Soviet spacecraft Voskhod 2 was launched.

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first person to leave a spacecraft for a "spacewalk".

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On this day in 1865 – March 21st – American astronomer Antonia Maury was born.


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On this day in 1997 – March 22nd – Comet Hale-Bopp made its closest approach to Earth.

Here is the two-tailed Hale-Bopp, probably the most widely observed comet of the twentieth century. It's also known as the Great Comet of 1997.

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On this day in 1749 – March 23rd – Pierre-Simon Laplace was born.

Laplace was a brilliant French mathematician, astronomer, and physicist who is sometimes called "France's Newton". He accounted for the observed deviations of planets from their theoretical orbits by applying Newton's theory of gravitation to the problem.

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On this day in 1840 – March 23rd – American scientist John William Draper produced the first detailed photograph of the Moon.

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On this day in 2001 – March 23rd – the Soviet/Russian space station Mir was deorbited.

Mir was the first space station assembled in orbit and the first continuously inhabited long-term orbital research station.

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On this day in 1893 – March 24th – German astronomer Walter Baade was born.

Baade, who worked at Mt Wilson Observatory for many years, defined two distinct populations of stars and his discovery that there are two types of Cepheid variable star meant that his recalculation of the known universe doubled the size calculated by Hubble.

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On this day in 1655 – March 25th – Christiaan Huygens discovered Saturn's moon Titan.

ESA's Titan lander was named for Huygens, a prominent Dutch mathematician and scientist.

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On this day in 1972 – March 27th – the Soviet probe Venera 8 was launched.

Venera 8 made the first completely successful landing on Venus and sent data from the surface for fifty minutes before succumbing to the pressure and searing temperature.

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On this day in 1802 – March 28th – Heinrich Olbers discovered Pallas.

Pallas was the second asteroid to be discovered, and it was counted as a planet at the time, as Ceres had been.

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On this day in 1807 – March 29th – Heinrich Olbers discovered Vesta.

Vesta was the third asteroid to be discovered, and it was counted as a planet at the time, as Ceres had been.

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On this day in 1974 – March 29th – Mariner 10 made the first ever flyby of Mercury.

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On this day in 1997 – March 31st – Pioneer 10's mission officially ended.

Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to go through the asteroid belt and the first to fly by Jupiter. After the end of the mission, there was still contact with the spacecraft to record telemetry as it headed out into the Kuiper Belt.

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On this day in 1845 – April 2nd – French physicists Leon Foucault and Louis Fizeau made the first successful photograph of the Sun.

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On this day in 1966 – April 3rd – the Soviet spacecraft Luna 10 was the first to be inserted into orbit around the Moon.

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On this day in 1973 – April 5th – NASA launched Pioneer 11.

Pioneer 11 was the first spacecraft to encounter Saturn and it followed Pioneer 10 into the far reaches of the Solar System.

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On this day in 1995 – April 7th – NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was deployed by astronauts on the space shuttle.

It transformed our knowledge of the high-energy sky, producing the first ever all-sky survey in gamma rays.

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On this day in 2001 – April 7th – NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter was launched.

The spacecraft's primary mission was meant to last 32 months. It's still in service.

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On this day in 1959 – April 9th – NASA selected its first group of astronauts known as the Mercury Seven.

They were the pioneers of the US manned space program: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. None of the Mercury Seven are still alive. John Glenn, who died last year, was the last of the group.

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On this day in 1919 – April 10th – John C. Houbolt was born.

Houbolt, an American aerospace engineer, is credited with leading the team behind the lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) that was used to land humans on the Moon and return them to Earth. Using LOR, NASA saved time and billions of dollars by efficiently using existing rocket technology.

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On this day in 1960 – April 11th – Project Ozma began.

Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake initiated this project. It was a pioneering SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) experiment to search for signs of life in distant planetary systems through interstellar radio waves.

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On this day in 1980 – April 11th – NASA's Viking 2 lander astrobiology mission ended.

The lander operated on the surface for 1316 days, and was turned off on April 11, 1980 when its batteries failed.

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On this day in 1970 – April 11th – NASA's Apollo 13 Moon mission was launched.

This was the ill-fated mission that didn't make onto the Moon, but with the assistance of a lot of smart people the astronauts made it safely back to Earth.

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On this day in 1961 – April 12th – Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the person to orbit the Earth.

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On this day in 1597 – April 13th – Giovanni Battista Hodierna was born.

Hodierna was a Sicilian astronomer at the court of the Duke of Montechiaro. Pre-dating Messier by over a century, he compiled a sky catalog that included a number of nebulous objects that might be confused with comets.

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On this day in 1629 – April 14th – Dutch scientist and mathematician Christiaan Huygens was born.

Huygens was a prominent scientist in his day, his varied contributions including the invention of the pendulum clock, and the discovery of Saturn's moon Titan. NASA named its Titan lander after him.

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On this day in 1971 – April 19th – Salyut 1 was launched.

Salyut 1 was launched by the Soviet Union and it was the first ever manned space station.

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On this day in 1967 – April 20th – Surveyor 3 landed on the Moon.

It was part of a NASA uncrewed program to explore the surface of the Moon, and as unique in that it was the only such probe to be visited by astronauts.

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On this day in 1858 – April 23rd – Max Planck was born.

Planck was a German theoretical physicist best known as the originator of quantum theory. His work won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. The European Space Agency (ESA) named a space observatory for him - it mapped the cosmic microwave background from 2009-2013.

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On this day in 1990 – April 25th – the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed.

The STS-31 mission of the shuttle Discovery launched the telescope.

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On this day in 1900 – April 28th – Dutch astronomer Jan Oort was born.

Oort made major contributions to the understanding of the Milky Way and was a pioneer in radio astronomy. He realized that the orbits of comets “implied there was a lot more solar system than the region occupied by the planets.” The Oort cloud of comets that surrounds the Solar System was named for him.

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On this day in 1906 – April 28th – Dutch-American astronomer Bart Bok was born.

He's best known for his work on the structure and evolution of our Galaxy and the dark nebulae named for him. Click here to learn more about Bok globules.

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On this day in 1928 – April 28th – American geologist Gene Shoemaker was born.

Shoemaker was one of the founders of the study of planetary science. And with his wife Carolyn and David Levy, he was co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 which hit Jupiter.

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On this day in 2013 – April 29th – ESA's Herschel Space Observatory mission ended.

The infrared observatory was named after William Herschel, who discovered infrared radiation, and his sister and collaborator Caroline. The observatory was able to see the coldest and dustiest objects in space, but it needed liquid helium to cool its instruments. When that ran out the mission ended.

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On this day in 1949 – May 1st – Gerard Kuiper discovered Neptune's moon Nereid.

Nereid was the second known moon of Neptune. It was discovered over a century after William Lassell discovered the first one, Triton.

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On this day in 1961 – May 5th – Alan Shepard became the first American in space.

Shepard completed a suborbital flight in Freedom 7.

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On this day in 2003 – May 9th – the Japanese mission Hayabusa ("peregrine falcon") was launched.

Hayabusa was the first mission to return a sample of material from an asteroid.

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On this day in 1900 – May 10th – British-American astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was born.

Cecilia Payne, in her PhD thesis, was the first to propose that stars stars were composed mainly of hydrogen and helium.

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On this day in 1974 – May 11th – the first geostationary satellite was launched.

SMS-1 (Synchronous Meteorological Satellite) was the first satellite in the first series of geostationary meteorological satellites. (A geostationary satellite is in an orbit that keeps it above the same part of the Earth all of the time.)

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Mona, I really appreciate how faithful you are in your posts. I can always count on you to read something interesting.


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Thank you for your kind words, Connie.

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On this day in 2009 – May 11th – the space shuttle mission STS-125 was launched.

STS-125 was the fifth and final servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope.

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On this day in 1916 – May 11th – Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was published.

Einstein's theory has often been tested and has passed every test - it changed the way we viewed the cosmos.

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On this day in 1930 – May 12th – the Adler Planetarium opened in Chicago.

The Adler Planetarium was the first planetarium in the western hemisphere.

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On this day in 1973 – May 14th – Skylab, the first United States space station, was launched.

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On this day in 2009 – May 14th – ESA launched the Herschel Space Observatory.

Launched along with the Planck Space Observatory, from 2009-2013 Herschel observed the cosmos in infrared.

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On this day in 2009 – May 14th – ESA launched the Planck Space Observatory.

Launched along with the Herschel Space Observatory, from 2009-2013 Planck made high resolution studies of the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the very early Universe.

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On this day in 1857 – May 15th – Scottish-American astronomer Williamina Fleming was born.

Fleming was a pioneer in the classification of stellar spectra and during the course of her career, she discovered 10 novae, 52 nebulae, and 310 variable stars.

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On this day in 1836 – May 17th – English scientist and astronomer Norman Lockyer was born.

Along with the French scientist Pierre Janssen he is credited with discovering the gas helium which was first discovered in the light spectrum of the Sun decades before any was found on Earth.

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On this day in 1969 – May 22nd – the Apollo 10 lunar module dropped to within 50,000 feet of the lunar surface.

This mission was the dress rehearsal for Apollo 11 in which astronauts first landed on the Moon.

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On this day in 1951 – May 26th – US physics professor and astronaut Sally Ride was born.

Dr Ride was the first American woman to go into space. Her first flight was almost twenty years to the day after cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.

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On this day in 1919 – May 29th – Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was tested during a solar eclipse.

By comparing the apparent distance between stars in the constellation Taurus, with and without the Sun between them, British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington confirmed the theoretical predictions about gravitational lenses.

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On this day in 1794 – May 29th – German astronomer Johann Heinrich von Mädler was born.

Von Mädler, along with Wilhelm Beer, published Mappa Selenographica, the most complete map of the Moon at that time, and which remained unsurpassed for over forty years.

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On this day in 1975 – May 30th – nine countries signed the convention to establish the European Space Agency (ESA).

The convention came into force on 30 October 1980 with the deposit of the last instrument of ratification.

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On this day in 1934 – May 30th – cosmonaut Alexi Leonov was born.

Among Leonov's accomplishments, he was the first person to carry out a "spacewalk".

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On this day in 1963 – May 30th – the first British astronaut Dr. Helen Sharman was born.

Sharman flew into space on Soyuz TM-12 in May 1991.

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On this day in 1930 – June 2nd – Apollo astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. was born.

During the Apollo 12 mission Conrad became the third person to walk on the Moon.

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On this day in 2003 – June 2nd – ESA launched Mars Express and Beagle 2.

Mars Express is still an operational orbiter. The British lander Beagle 2 was damaged as it landed on Mars and never became operational.


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On this day in 1858 – June 2nd – Giovanni Battista Donati first observed the comet that bears his name.

Comet Donati, formally designated C/1858 L1 and 1858 VI, was one of the most brilliant comets of the 19th century. It inspired artists and poets and was also the first comet to be photographed, though the photograph has been lost.

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On this day in 1977 – June 2nd – 14 delegates from nations around the world plus the UN Secretary-General recorded greetings for the Voyager space probes' "golden record"..

Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched a month apart later in the year. Decades later Voyager 1 became the first probe to cross the heliopause into interstellar space.

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On this day in 1948 – June 3rd – the 200-inch Hale telescope was dedicated at Palomar Observatory in California.

The telescope was a marvel of design and precision engineering and the largest in the world for several decades.

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On this day in 1819 – June 5th – British mathematician and astronomer John Couch Adams was born.

His most famous achievement was predicting the existence and position of Neptune, using only mathematics. But Urbain LeVerrier had independently made the calculations and the planet was discovered using his calculations. (Who discovered Neptune?)

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On this day in 1932 – June 6th – Apollo astronaut Dave Scott was born.

Scott was the commander of Apollo 15 and the seventh person to walk on the Moon.

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On this day in 1625 – June 8th – Italian-French astronomer Giovanni Domenico (Jean Dominique) Cassini was born.

Cassini was one of the most important astronomers of the 17-18th centuries, and was the first of four Cassinis to be director of the Paris Observatory. His study of Saturn, including discovering four of Saturn's moons, led to the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini–Huygens mission bearing his name.

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On this day in 1812 – June 9th – German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle was born.

Galle is best known for his being the first person to see the planet Neptune, knowing what he was seeing. This followed his search for the planet using the calculations Urbain Le Verrier had sent him. (Who discovered Neptune?)

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On this day in 2003 – June 10th – NASA's Mars rover Spirit was launched.

The original plans had Spirit on Mars for three months, but the mission wasn't finally terminated until May 2011.

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On this day in 2008 – June 11th – the Fermi Gamma Ray space telescope was launched.

The space observatory performs gamma-ray observations from low Earth orbit. Gamma rays are the highest energy radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. The mission is a joint venture of NASA, the United States Department of Energy, and government agencies in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Sweden.

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On this day in 1831 – June 13th – James Clerk Maxwell was born.

Maxwell was the Scottish scientist who showed that electricity, magnetism, and light are all aspects of the same phenomenon, electromagnetism.

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On this day in 1831 – June 13th – the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa ("Peregrine Falcon") returned the first samples from an asteroid.

Hayabusa studied asteroid 25143 Itokawa and then landed on the asteroid to collect small grains of material.

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On this day in 2012 – June 13th – NASA's NuStarr X-ray telescope was launched.

NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) was the first space-based direct-imaging X-ray telescope operating at energies beyond the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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On this day in 1963 – June 16th – Valentina Tereshkova in Vostok 6 became the first woman in space.

The Soviet cosmonaut remains the only woman to make a solo space flight.

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On this day in 1714 – June 17th – French astronomer and cartographer César-François Cassini de Thury was born.

He was the grandson of Giovanni Domenico Cassini and the third Cassini to be the director of the Paris Observatory.

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On this day in 1799 – June 18th – English merchant and astronomer William Lassell was born.

He was known for his improvements to the reflecting telescope and his discoveries, e.g., two of the moons of Neptune.

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On this day in 1983 – June 18th – physicist and astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

Ride was a crew member of STS-7 Challenger which was launched 2 days after the 20th anniversary of Valentina Tereshkova's space flight.

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On this day in 2009 – June 19th – NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) were launched.

The LCROSS mission confirmed the presence of water in a shadowed crater on the Moon. LRO is still mapping the Moon.

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On this day in 1710 – June 21st – Scottish mathematician, optician and telescope maker James Short was born.

Short produced the first nearly distortionless telescope mirrors - they were in demand throughout Europe for several decades. He was also the principal British collator and computer of the worldwide 1761 Venus transit observations.

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On this day in 1675 – June 22nd – the Royal Observatory Greenwich was founded.

The Prime Meridian (0 degrees of longitude) goes through Greenwich.

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On this day in 1894 – June 25th – German physicist and engineer Hermann Oberth was born.

Oberth is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics.

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On this day in 1730 – June 26th – French astronomer Charles Messier was born.

Messier discovered so many comets that King Louis XV called him a "comet ferret". Messier's name is still known for his catalogue of nebulous objects that might be taken for comets.

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On this day in 1914 – June 26th – American theoretical physicist and astronomer Lyman Spitzer, Jr. was born.

His major contributions to astronomy included his studies of star formation and the interstellar medium. The Spitzer Space Telescope is named in his honor.

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On this day in 1912 – June 28th – Australian radio astronomer Ruby Payne-Scott was born.

Payne-Scott was a pioneer in radiophysics and radio astronomy, and was the first female radio astronomer.

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On this day in 1868 – June 29th – American solar astronomer George Ellery Hale was born.

Hale was a key figure in the creation of three telescopes, each of which was the biggest in the world at the time of construction: the 40-inch refractor at Yerkes Observatory, the 60-inch Hale reflector at Mt Wilson and the 200-inch Hale reflector at Palomar Observatory.


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On this day in 1995 – June 29th – the first docking between the Soviet space station Mir and the American Space Shuttle took place.

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On this day in 1908 – June 30th – an asteroid impact leveled hundreds of miles of Siberian forest around Tunguska.

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On this day in 2001 – June 30th – the Wilkinson Microwave Anistotropy Probe (WMAP) was launched.

This spacecraft operated from 2001 to 2010. Across the sky it measured tiny temperature differences in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - the radiant heat left over from the Big Bang.

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On this day in 1990 – June 30th – the joint ESA/NASA Ulysses mission came to an end after 18 years in service.

Ulysses was the first ever spacecraft to explore space above and below the Sun's poles. When it was launched it had a nominal lifetime of five years.

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On this day in 1917 – July 1st – the 100" mirror for the Hooker telescope arrived at Mt Wilson Observatory.

This telescope was the biggest in the world for three decades. Edwin Hubble calculated the distance to Andromeda from a Cepheid variable he discovered there with the telescope. It showed Andromeda was a separate galaxy. Hubble and Humason also observed the redshifts of a number of galaxies and found that they were moving away from us.

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On this day in 1985 – July 2nd – the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Giotto probe to study Halley's Comet.

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On this day in 1935 – July 3rd – geologist and Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt was born.

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