Today in History – March 8, 1775 – Priestley discovers oxygen through experiments with mice. Oxygen was independently discovered in the 1770’s; the most famous names associated with this discovery are Joseph Priestley, Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier. Credit is usually given to Joseph Priestley as he had the first publication [...]

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Today in History – March 7, 1979 -  Voyager 1 transmits first images of a ring system around Jupiter. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 and it passed Saturn in November 1980. A second spacecraft, the Voyager 2, was launched earlier on August 20, 1977. Later in 1979 improved images were provided by [...]

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Today in History – February 17, 1998 – “ Voyager 1 becomes the most distant human-made object from the Sun. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 and it passed Saturn in November 1980. It continues a trajectory that takes it out of the solar system, making it the most distant spacecraft [...]

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Today in History – February 14, 1990 -  First photo of the solar system is taken and dubbed the “family portrait” of our solar system as seen from outside.
Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 and it passed Saturn in November 1980. It continued a trajectory that took it out of the solar system, [...]

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Today in History – February 7, 1984 – The first untethered spacewalks were made by Space Shuttle Challenger astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart. Each used a manned maneuvering unit (MMU) in an orbit 150 nautical miles above the Earth. McCandless was the first to leave the cargo bay untethered in space. They [...]

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