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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 1925 – January 1st – Edwin Hubble read to the American Astronomical Society what would be a ground-breaking paper.Hubble showed that the Andromeda "nebula" wasn't an object in the Milky Way, but a galaxy in its own right. Here is picture of the glass plate on which Hubble discovered a Cepheid variable - marked VAR! - in the Andromeda galaxy. From this he determined that it was too far away to be located in our own galaxy.
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On this day in 2019 – January 1st – NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made a fly-by of 486958 Arrokoth.
Arrokoth is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt. It's the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System to be visited by a spacecraft.
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On this day in 1871 – January 2nd – American astronomer Anne Sewell Young was born in Bloomington, Wisconsin.
In 1899 she went to teach at Mount Holyoke College where she was appointed director of the John Payson Williston Observatory. She remained there until her retirement. Young's primary astronomical interest was in variable stars. She was one of the eight original members of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).
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On this day in 1920 – January 2nd – American author and scientist Isaac Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Soviet Russia.
(The exact date of Asimov's birth was unknown due to the state of record-keeping, but he always celebrated on January 2nd.) Asimov was a professor of chemistry, and also a prolific writer on many subjects. He's best remembered for his works of science fiction and of popular science, including astronomy.
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On this day in 1959 – January 2nd – the Soviet Union's Luna 1 was the first spacecraft to leave the Earth's gravitational field.
Luna 1 passed to within 6000 km of the Moon, and ended up in orbit around the Sun.
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. On this day in 2004 – January 3rd – NASA's rover Spirit landed on Mars. Along with the Opportunity rover, the rovers' missions were designed to last for just over three months. Spirit was active until 2010..
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. On this day in 1643 – January 4th – Isaac Newton was born in Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. The great physicist and mathematician was born on Christmas Day 1642, according to the Julian Calendar then in use. Nearly a century later England adopted the Gregorian calendar, and the equivalent date is ten days later..
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On this day in 1797 – January 4th – German amateur astronomer Wilhelm Beer was born in Berlin.
Beer, along with Johannes Heinrich Maedler, published the first map of the Moon (Mappa Salenographica). They 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 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 didn't capture the movement. German physicist Martin Brendel and a fellow scientist, on an expedition in northern Norway, took the first successful image, and revolutionized the study of the northern lights..
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. On this day in 2005 – January 5th – astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chadwick A. Trujillo and David L. Rabinowitz discovered Eris. Eris is a trans-Neptunian object orbiting the Sun once every 557 years at an average distance of 1.7 times that of Pluto. It's slightly smaller than Pluto, but more massive, and was thought to be a 10th planet. But Eris and Pluto were finally defined as dwarf planets by the International Astronomical Union..
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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 low polar orbit. This would include mapping the surface composition, 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 described his observations of the Moon through a telescope.
In Galileo's time, the Moon was thought to be a perfectly smooth sphere. However Galileo saw that 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 Jupiter's moons. The three objects he saw in his telescope are now known as Callisto, Io and Europa, three of the four Galilean moons..
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On this day in 1587 – January 8th – Johannes Fabricius was born in Resterhafe, East Friesland (now part of Germany).
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 as, and independently of, Galileo.
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. On this day in 1942 – January 8th – English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford, England. The 80th anniversary of his birth was celebrated by Google. For thirty years he was the Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge, a prestigious post once held by Isaac Newton. Hawking also wrote books on cosmology for the general public, the best known being A Brief History of Time. He was most closely associated with his work on black holes..
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. On this day in 1839 – January 9th – Thomas Henderson published his determination of the distance to Alpha Centauri. Henderson had actually been the first person to calculate the distance to a fixed star by using stellar parallax. However he had delayed publishing his results, and the credit for being first went elsewhere..
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On this day in 1992 – January 9th – Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting the millisecond pulsar PSR 1257+12.
They had discovered the first exoplanets, i.e., planets outside our Solar System. Later, Wolszczan discovered a third planet in the system.
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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 used decades later to map the planet Venus.
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. On this day in 1787 – January 11th – William Herschel discovered the Uranian moons Oberon and Titania.It would be almost five decades after Titania and Oberon were discovered that another astronomer would observe them..
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On this day in 1873 – January 11th – American lawyer and amateur astronomer William Tyler Olcott was born in Chicago, Illinois.
As well as founding the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), Olcott wrote a number of popular books on astronomy.
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. On this day in 1907 – January 12th – Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine.Korolev was the mastermind of the Soviet space program, and a state secret. If he was referred to at all, it was as the Chief Designer, not by name..
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. On this day in 1610 – January 13th – Galileo discovered a fourth satellite of Jupiter. This was the moon we now know as Ganymede, the biggest moon in the Solar System..
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On this day in 1916 – January 14th – the Royal Astronomical Society in London, founded in 1820, finally admitted the first elected female Fellows.
Recognising their achievement in astronomy and geophysics, Mary Adele Blagg, Ella K Church, A Grace Cook and Fiammetta Wilson were admitted to full membership in the society.
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. On this day in 2005 – January 14th – the European Space Agency (ESA) probe Huygens landed on Saturn's moon Titan.It was the first time a spacecraft had been landed on a moon other than our own. Here is footage of the Huygens landing on Titan..
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On this day in 2008 – January 14th – NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft made its first flyby of Mercury.
MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) was the second spacecraft to reach Mercury, the first having been Mariner 10 in 1975.
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On this day in 2006 – January 15th – NASA's Stardust spacecraft completed its mission by returning its samples to Earth.
Stardust was a robotic space probe whose primary mission was to collect dust samples from the coma of comet Wild 2, as well as samples of cosmic dust.
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On this day in 1969 – January 16th – the first docking of two manned spacecraft occurred.
The Soviet Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 docked in space and transferred crew from one vehicle to another by a space walk.
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. On this day in 2015 – January 16th – the UK Space Agency announced that the remains of the probe Beagle 2 had been located on Mars.The probe had been lost on Christmas Day 2003 after successful insertion into orbit by Mars Express. It was finally identified in images from the HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)..
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. On this day in 1647 – January 17th – Elisabetha Hevelius (née Koopmann), the second wife of Johannes Hevelius, was born in Gdańsk, Poland.She is considered to be one of the first European female astronomers, and is often called 'The mother of Moon charts'. Elisabetha helped her husband manage his observatory, and published two of his works after his death..
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On this day in 2002 – January 18th – Gemini South Observatory was dedicated.
Gemini South in Chile and Gemini North in Hawaii together constitute the Gemini Observatory. The twin telescopes provide almost complete coverage of the skies with two of the largest and most advanced optical/infrared telescopes available.
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. On this day in 1747 – January 19th – Johann Bode was born in Hamburg, Germany.Bode was the director of the Berlin Observatory for nearly forty years. In 1801 he published his influential star atlas Uranographia. A keen popularizer of astronomy, he also produced a smaller atlas aimed at amateur astronomers. His name also lives on in the "Titius-Bode Law"..
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On this day in 1851– January 19th – Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn was born in Barneveld, Netherlands.
Kapteyn was best known for his studies of the Milky Way. He was the first to discover evidence that galaxies rotate.
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On this day in 2006– January 19th – NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was launched.
The spacecraft made a flyby of the Plutonian system in the summer of 2015, and on New Year's Day 2019, followed it up with a flyby of the Kuiper Belt object informally called Ultima Thule, but later renamed Arrokoth.
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. On this day in 1573 – January 20th – German astronomer Simon Marius was born in Gunzenhausen, Germany.Marius claimed he had seen Jupiter's moons before Galileo. Galileo's documentation was more extensive and published first, so he got the credit. However, the suggestions Marius made for naming the four large moons were eventually adopted..
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. On this day in 1930 – January 20th – Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.The second man to step onto the Moon has been not only an astronaut, but also an 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 2014 – January 20th – ESA's Rosetta spacecraft awoke from a deep space hibernation of over thirty months.Rosetta's historic mission saw her then catch up with a comet, go into orbit around it, put a lander on its surface, and follow the comet as it went around the Sun..
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On this day in 1908 – January 21st – Danish astronomer and astrophysicist Bengt Strömgren was born in Gothenburg, Sweden.
He applied quantum mechanics to understanding stars, produced pioneering work in the chemical composition of stars, and discovered vast shells of ionized hydrogen around stars, now known as Strömgren Spheres.
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. On this day in 1592 – January 22nd – Pierre Gassendi was born in Champtercier, France.He was a French philosopher, priest, astronomer, and scientific observer, experimentalist and chronicler. Gassendi was also the first person ever to see a planet transiting the Sun when he observed the 1631 transit of Mercury..
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On this day in 2003 – January 22nd – the last signal from Pioneer 10 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 functioned for more than 30 years. It's now reckoned to be about 132 AU from the Earth, headed in the direction of Taurus. (One AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun.)
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. On this day in 1986 – January 24th – Voyager 2 flew past Uranus.This fly-by was the first and only visit of a spacecraft to the ice giant Uranus..
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On this day in 1736 – January 25th – French-Italian mathematician Joseph Lagrange was born in Turin, Italy.
Lagrange was one of the great minds of the 18th century, and 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, and the James Webb Space Telescope at another.
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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, the craft was used to test 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, but it was operational until the summer of 2018 when an exceptionally severe dust storm blanketed Mars for three months. The rover didn't recover from the loss of power, and the mission was officially brought to an end in February 2019.
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On this day in 1978 – January 26th – the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) was launched.
The IUE was a joint effort by the European Space Agency (ESA), the UK Science Research Council and NASA. It was switched off in 1996, after it had worked 14 years beyond its planned lifetime.
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. On this day in 1829 – January 27th – pioneering astrophotographer Isaac Roberts was born in Groes Bach, Henllan, Denbighshire, Wales, UK.Roberts was an 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 actually showed the spiral structure of M31..
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. On this day in 1941 – January 27th – New Zealand astrophysicist Beatrice Hill Tinsley was born in Chester, England.Beatrice 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..
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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.They are commemorated at the Astronaut Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida..
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. On this day in 1611 – January 28th – Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius was born in Danzig (Gdańsk), Poland.Johannes Hevelius studied sunspots, produced a lunar chart, discovered several comets, and compiled an important star atlas. He was one of the most influential astronomers of the 17th century..
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. On this day in 1611 – January 28th – NASA's space shuttle Challenger was engulfed in a huge fireball soon after launch. The seven crew members perished in the accident.They are commemorated at the Astronaut Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida..
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On this day in 1935 – January 29th – Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek was born in Zábřeh, Czechia.
Kohoutek has discovered over 70 minor planets, a number of planetary nebulae, a supernova and several comets. His name is probably best known internationally from the periodic comets that bear his name.
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On this day in 1958– January 31st – the United States launched Explorer 1.
The first satellite launched by the United States, it was part of the U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year. It was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt.
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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.They are commemorated at the Astronaut Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida..
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On this day in 1966 – February 3rd – 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 1995 – February 3rd – Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle, flying Discovery to the Russian Mir space station.
Four years later she would became the first woman commander of a space shuttle.
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. On this day in 1906 – February 4th – Clyde Tombaugh was born in Streator, Illinois.Tombaugh was the American astronomer who discovered Pluto. He died in 1997, and a portion of his ashes were on the New Horizons spacecraft that journeyed to Pluto and beyond..
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. On this day in 1963 – February 5th – Dutch astronomer Maarten Schmidt had a sudden insight that provided the clue to solving the mystery of quasars.Schmidt realized that a quasar wasn't an object in our Galaxy, and its strange 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 1974 – February 5th – NASA's Mariner 10 took a historic gravity assist from Venus in order to make its flyby of Mercury.
It was the first spacecraft to turn the theoretical possibility of such a gravity assist into a reality, and it enabled the first visit of a spacecraft to Mercury.
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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. (Note: Shepard also hit the last golf balls on the Moon. So far!)
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On this day in 1824 – February 7th – English astronomer and pioneering spectroscopist, William Huggins, was born in London.
He is best remembered for revolutionizing observational astronomy through the application of spectroscopic methods to determine the chemical constituents of stars and other celestial objects.
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On this day in 1984 – February 7th – On this day in 1984 – February 7th – during space shuttle mission STS-41B, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless made the first untethered spacewalk.
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On this day in 1999 – February 7th – NASA's Stardust comet probe was launched.
Stardust was the first sample return mission to collect samples of cosmic dust, and of dust from a comet's coma, then return them to Earth.
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On this day in 1826 – February 8th – Jules Verne was born in Nantes, France.
The French author 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 1974 – February 8th – the last crew to occupy NASA's Skylab returned to Earth.
Skylab, the first US space station, was launched in May 1973.
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On this day in 1960 – February 9th – biochemist and NASA astronaut, Peggy Whitson, was born in Mount Ayr, Iowa, USA.
Whitson was the first woman to command the International Space Station, and she did it twice. She was also NASA's Chief Astronaut and although now retired, still has the record for the most time in space of any NASA astronaut.
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. On this day in 2021 – February 9th – the Hope orbiter of the United Arab Emirates was inserted into Mars orbit.The mission was designed to study the Martian atmosphere and climate..
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On this day in 2021 – February 10th – the Chinese Tienwen-1 orbiter was inserted into Martian orbit.
In addition to an orbiter, the mission included a lander and a rover.
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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 - Shoemaker was the first spacecraft ever 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.
NEAR - 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 1898 – February 14th – Swiss astronomer and physicist Fritz Zwicky was born in Varna, Bulgaria.
Zwicky studied physics and mathematics at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich. In 1925 he immigrated to the United States to work with Robert Andrews Millikan at Caltech, but remained a Swiss citizen all his life. Zwicky was quite eccentric in many ways, but made important contributions in several areas of astronomy, carrying out research at both Mt Wilson and Palomar observatories.
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On this day in 1980 – February 14th – NASA's Solar Maximum mission was launched.
Solar Max was designed to investigate solar phenomena, particularly solar flares.
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. On this day in 1990 – February 14th – NASA's Voyager 1 took a Family Portrait, looking towards the Sun from 6 billion km away.Earth is only one pixel of the image, christened by Carl Sagan "the pale blue dot"..
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On this day in 2011 – February 14th – the Stardust-NExT spacecraft made a close flyby of comet Tempel 1.
It was NASA's second visit to Tempel 1, because the Deep Impact mission had visited it in 2005, sending an impactor in order to learn about the comet's interior..
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On this day in 1973 – February 15th – Pioneer 10 became the first ever spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt.
Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972, and is is now nearly four times farther away from the Sun than 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 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 astronomical discoveries, his experimental physics and, of course, his getting in trouble with the Church..
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On this day in 1973 – February 15th – Pioneer 10 became the first ever spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt.
Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972, and is is now nearly four times farther away from the Sun than 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 1514 – February 16th – Georg Joachim de Porris was born in Feldkirch in present-day Austria.The mathematician, astronomer and cartographer, better known as Rheticus, is best remembered for facilitating the publication of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) by Copernicus..
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. On this day in 1914 – February 16th – Gerard Kuiper discovered Miranda, a moon of Uranus.It was the first discovery of a Uranian moon since William Lassell's discovery of Ariel and Umbriel in 1851..
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On this day in 1723 – February 17th – German cartographer and astronomer Tobias Mayer was born in Marbach, Württemberg.
Mayer's chart of the full moon was the standard for half a century, but he's best known for his lunar tables. The accuracy of the lunar positions (and the theory behind them) enhanced the lunar distance method for determining longitude at sea. It enabled navigators to find longitude accurately to half a degree.
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On this day in 1996 – February 17th – NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft was launched.
The spacecraft 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 2018 – February 17th – it was the 5,000th sol that NASA's Mars rover Opportunity had been on the red planet.
Opportunity's mission was originally planned for 90 sols. A sol is a Martian day, and it's just over 39.5 minutes longer than an Earth day. A severe planet-wide dust storm in the summer of 2018 would finally end Opportunity's amazing mission.
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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 1930 – February 18th – Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet for many years. It's now the largest known Kuiper Belt object, and is classified as a dwarf planet. .
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. On this day in 2021 – February 18th – NASA's Perserverance rover arrived safely on Mars at the place now named the Octavia E. Butler Landing.Perserverance also carried the Mars helicopter Ingenuity. .
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. On this day in 1473 – February 19th – Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland.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 the first continuously inhabited long-term research station in orbit. The failing station was deorbited in March 2001.
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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 1744 – February 21st – Frisian astronomer Eise Eisinga was born in Dronrijp, Netherlands.
He built the Koninklijk Eise Eisinga Planetarium at his house in Franeker, Netherlands. The orrery still exists and is the oldest functioning planetarium in the world.
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On this day in 1978 – February 22nd – the first Navstar GPS satellite was launched.
Navstar GPS was what is now called the Global Positioning System (GPS).
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. On this day in 1945 – February 23rd – Ukrainian astronomer Svetlana Gerasimenko was born in Baryshivka, Ukraine.Gerasimenko's name is well known because she was the co-discoverer of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This was the comet explored by the Rosetta mission . Both the Rosetta spacecraft and its lander Philae are on the comet as it continues to orbit the Sun..
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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 1987 – February 23rd – Pioneer 11 crossed the orbit of Neptune on its way out of the Solar System.
On that date, the spacecraft went beyond the most distant planet. However, since there are dwarf planets and many other objects beyond Neptune, the spacecraft still hadn't left the Solar System. It's now nearly 112 times farther from the Sun than the Earth is.
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. On this day in 1968 – February 24th – the discovery of the first pulsar was announced. However, it wasn't until later that astronomers understood what the object was and gave it its name.We now know that the mystery objects are fast-rotating neutron stars that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. We can only detect one 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 1670 – February 25th – German astronomer Maria Margarethe Kirch (née Winckelmann) was born in Panitzsch near Leipzig.
Maria made extensive observations and published accounts of them. She was the first woman now known to have discovered a comet. However, her husband – a well known astronomer – was given the credit.
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. On this day in 1786 – February 26th – François Arago was born at Estagel near Perpignan in France.This extraordinary man was a prominent astronomer, mathematician and physicist, as well as an enlightened politician. He aided in the project of surveying the Paris meridian, and later served as director of the Paris Observatory for over twenty years..
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. On this day in 1842 – February 26th – Camille Flammarion, French astronomer and author, was born in Val-de-Meuse.Flammarion produced over fifty books, including popular books on astronomy, and also some early science fiction novels..
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On this day in 1897 – February 27th – French astronomer Bernard Lyot was born in Paris.
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 2007 – February 28th – the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Jupiter en route to Pluto.
New Horizons made over 700 observations of the Jovian system, but the main reason for the flyby was to carry out a gravity assist maneuver. That boosted the speed of the spacecraft to get it to Pluto five years earlier than it would have otherwise.
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On this day in 1927 – March 1st – American astronomer George Abell was born in Los Angeles, California.
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 1965 – March 1st – the first foundation piles were laid for ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre) at Noordwijk in the Netherlands.
ESTEC is the European Space Agency's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology.
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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.
Unfortunately, when the probe entered the atmosphere, 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 descent stage of Soviet probe Venera 13 landed on Venus.
It was the first Venusian probe to transmit color pictures from the surface of the planet. Designed to survive for half an hour, it transmitted for 127 minutes.
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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 it carried out the first mission to Jupiter. It's now about 133 AU from Earth, heading out of the Solar System in the direction of the constellation Taurus.
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. On this day in 2004 – March 2nd – the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Rosetta spacecraft.Rosetta would travel for ten years and billions of miles in order to rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, accompany it as it moved through the inner Solar System past the Sun, and also deploy a lander. The mission ended with the spacecraft landing on the comet..
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. On this day in 1923 – March 4th – Sir Patrick Moore, English amateur astronomer, writer and broadcaster, was born in Pinner, Middlesex.He was a prolific author, but was probably 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 died in 2012, the program goes on and is the world's longest-running television series..
Last edited by Mona - Astronomy; 03/04/23 05:17 PM.
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. On this day in 1979 – March 4th – Jupiter's rings were discovered in images from the Voyager 1 spacecraft.The rings are dark and made up mainly of dust, so had not been seen from Earth..
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On this day in 1512 – March 5th – Gerardus Mercator was born in Rupelmonde, Kruibeke in what is now Belgium.
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 2005 – March 5th – the European Space Agency (ESA) officially inaugurated its first deep space ground station.
The New Norcia facility in Western Australia was the first, but it's since been joined by stations in Spain and Argentina. Deep space tracking stations are essential for missions such as Rosetta and Mars Express.
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On this day in 1787 – March 6th – Joseph Fraunhofer was born in Straubing, Germany.
Fraunhofer was an 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 1937 – March 6th – Valentina Tereshkova was born in Bol'shoe Maslennikovo, Russia.Tereshkova, the first woman in space, was a Soviet cosmonaut who spent three days orbiting in Vostok 6..
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. On this day in 1792 – March 7th – polymath John Herschel was born in Slough, Berkshire, England.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, author, musician and linguist..
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On this day in 1831 – March 7th – King William IV signed a Royal Charter for the Astronomical Society of London, and it assumed the name Royal Astronomical Society.
William IV also agreed to be the Society's patron; every subsequent British monarch has followed suit.
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. On this day in 1837 – March 7th – Henry Draper was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, USA.Draper was a doctor, amateur astronomer and 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 1804 – March 8th – American astronomer and telescope maker Alvan Clark was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts.
In 1846 he founded Alvan Clark & Sons, which made astronomical telescopes and instruments. Notably, the company made the lenses for large refracting telescopes at Lick Observatory and Yerkes Observatory.
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On this day in 1564 – March 9th – German pastor and amateur astronomer David Fabricius was born in Esens.
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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. On this day in 1934 – March 9th – Soviet pilot and cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was the first human in space.Yuri Gagarin was born in Klushino, a village in Smolensk Oblast, Russia..
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. On this day in 1979 – March 9th – NASA astronomer Linda Morabito discovered evidence of volcanic activity on Jupiter's moon Io.She found the picture of the first active volcano known outside Earth among the images sent back by Voyager 1.
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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 who were using the occultation by Uranus of star SAO 158687 to study the planet's atmosphere..
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. On this day in 1811 – March 11th – French mathematician and astronomer Urbain LeVerrier was born in Saint-Lô.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 in Wallace, Nova Scotia.
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.He was the first person in history to discover a new planet..
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On this day in 1885 – March 13th – Percival Lowell was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
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.
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On this day in 1835 – March 14th – Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli was born in Savigliano.
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 and others were convinced that there was an advanced civilization on Mars.
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