BellaOnline Forums Thread Like Summary - It's 2022 - on this day in the past . . .

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On this day in 1801 – January 1st – Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres.

Ceres was the first object discovered in what's now known as the asteroid belt. It was at first considered a planet, then an asteroid, and is now classed as a dwarf planet.

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On this day in 1971 – February 6th – Alan Shepard hit the first golf balls on the Moon.

The Apollo 14 lunar module landed on the Moon on February 5th with lunar module pilot Ed Mitchell and commander Alan Shepard. Shepard hit the golf balls on their second exploration of the Moon.

And I think only a small fraction of the public are even interested. Findings have to compete in the media with wars, bad behaviour by movie stars and star athletes, and all that stuff.

The above is true. I get Discover magazine and it is chock full of information but you just don't hear about some things on the news anymore. I recall clipping and saving articles about breaking the sound barrier, astronomy, etc in the paper. Now you don't see anything like that nor on the news. Like you, we have to go out of our way by subscribing either to magazines or email updates for information. I am glad we are curious researchers.

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On this day in 1972 – April 16th – Apollo 16 was launched.

It was crewed by Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke, and Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly.

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On this day in 1598 – April 17th – Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli was born in Ferrara.

Riccioli's best known for his Almagestum Novum published in 1651. It included his Moon map and over 1500 folio pages densely packed with text, tables and illustrations. The work became a standard technical reference book for astronomers all over Europe and included the names of prominent lunar features still in use today.

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On this day in 1912 – May 28th – Australian radio astronomer Ruby Payne-Scott was born in Grafton, New South Wales.

She worked on radar systems in World War II, and post war helped to lay the foundations for radio astronomy. Payne-Scott was the first woman radio astronomer.