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

On this day in 1969 – July 24th – the crew of Apollo 11 returned safely to Earth.

President John F. Kennedy's goal "of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth" had been achieved "before this decade is out", though he didn't live to see it.

On this day in 2009 – July 24th – the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GranTeCan or GTC) was dedicated.

Located on La Palma in the Canary Islands of Spain, it's the world's largest single-aperture optical telescope.

On this day in 1982 – July 25th – Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space.

The Soviet cosmonaut was the first woman in space after Valentina Tereshkova's initial flight nineteen years earlier.

On this day in 1971 – July 26th – Apollo 15 was launched.

It was the first mission to use the lunar rover to explore.

On this day in 1635 – July 28th – English polymath Robert Hooke, known as "England's Leonardo", was born.

Hooke contributed to astronomy, geology, structural engineering, chemistry and physics, helped rebuild London after the Great Fire, and was a renowned experimenter, inventor, musician and artist.

On this day in 1851 – July 28th – the first successful photographic image of a solar eclipse, showing the Sun's corona, was made.

This first solar eclipse image was a daguerrotype made by J. Berkowski at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia).

On this day in 1999 – July 31st – NASA's Lunar Prospector mission ended.

It investigated the Moon from low polar orbit, among other things mapping surface composition and possible polar ice deposits. The orbiter was deliberately crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole in the hope that it would create a plume in which water could be detected. (It didn't.)

On this day in 1971 – July 31st – the first vehicle was driven on the Moon.

Astronauts Dave Scott and Jim Irwin were able to explore more widely using the lunar rover.

On this day in 1818 – August 1st – American astronomer Maria Mitchell was born.

She was the first American woman to discover a comet, the first to be a college professor, and the first woman to be elected to scientific societies in the USA..