I sit in my basement while outside it is a raging snowstorm. I left for work early as always and got through it all by noon. As I was heading home the promised snow started. It went from clear to white-out conditions in 5 minutes, and I arrived home at 1PM. So glad I don't have to deal with rush hour traffic, especially today!
The girls are out, the
So without any further ado:
460 years ago, in 1564:
Galileo Galilei is born in Pisa, Duchy of Florence, Italy.
Well, what can I say about Galileo that already hasn't been said? He proved that the Earth wasn't the center of the solar system, saw that moons rotated around Jupiter and the Sun was not a "perfect" sphere; spots did show up. Gives me something to look at in the day
If you're ever looking for a good read about the man, I highly recommend this book. Got it for two bucks at a thrift store and have read it twice. You can even find it used online:
179 years ago, in 1845:
The 72-inch (1.83 m) Rosse Telescope (Leviathan of Parsonstown) sees "first light".
William Parsons of Birr castle in Ireland built the worlds largest telescope at the time; until the construction of the 100-inch (2.5 m) Hooker Telescope in California in 1917.
The speculum mirror weighed in at almost 3 tons; and since speculum tarnished quickly, there were two of them.
The entire scope was about 12 tons. It had a large range of altitude, though a limited range of azimuth. It was used to study the nebulae in the catalogues of Charles
Not surprisingly, a lot of these nebulae had a spiral shape, and were later determined to be seperate galaxies, due to Edwin Hubble using the larger Hooker scope.
The "Leviathan" was reconstructed in the mid-nineties, and remains a visitor attraction to this day.
51 years ago, in 1973:
Pioneer 10 becomes the first spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt.
A major feat here. The Pioneers 10 and 11 were launched prior to the Voyagers "Grand tour" of the outer solar system. The main purpose was to see if the asteroid belt was passable. It turned out not to be like the movies portrayed it; you have a better chance on the lottery than hitting an asteroid with your spacecraft!
31 years ago, in 1993:
The Japanese Hiten moon probe is placed into permanent lunar orbit.
The Hiten probe was launched on January 24, 1990, making Japan the third country after the U.S.A and U.S.S.R to launch a lunar probe.
One of its goals was to test the "aerobraking" manuver (using a planet's atmosphere to slow down) and it made the first of this over the Earth, as it was in a eliptical Earth-Moon orbit. Out of a total of 8 of these orbits, two were used for aerobraking.
The only scientific instrument on Hiten was the Munich Dust Counter. A couple of months after permanently going into Lunar orbit, it was deliberately crashed into the surface on April 10, 1993.
30 years ago, in 1994:
The Clementine lunar probe makes its second Earth flyby.
Launched on January 25, 1994, its objective was to test sensors and spacecraft components in long-term exposure to space and to make scientific observations of both the Moon and the near-Earth asteroid 1620 Geographos.
After the successfull Earth flyby, Clementine was interted into Lunar orbit. Sadly, it had issues after leaving the Moon and never reached 1620 Geographos. A good NASA article on it here.
27 years ago, in 1997:
10199 Chariklo, the largest confirmed centaur, is discovered by James V. Scotti of the Spacewatch program.
10199 Chariklo orbits the Sun between Saturn and Uranus, grazing the orbit of Uranus. In 2014, it was confirmed to have rings as well.
11 years ago, in 2013:
A near-Earth asteroid explodes in an air burst over Chelyabinsk, Russia.
Who doesn't remember this? Some great videos on the net; probably the best documented air burst ever. Still, if this happened over a large city (think New York, London and the like) I have to think the results would not be good!
Still snowing here; I went up to feed her highness and it is still coming down hard and heavy. Last week at this time I was outside in a T shirt, now it's about 33F (1C) and this is our first major snowstorm sice the start date of winter.
So much for any observing
Hope you're faring better, and have a good day/night everyone
All the best,
