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On This Date in History - July 17

by Nick Greene
for About.com

Daily Extra :


Astronomy & Space Fact

It's a small world. More than 1,000 Earths would fit into Jupiter's vast sphere.

Today in History:


1969: Apollo 11 - USA Lunar Manned Lander (July 16-24, 1969) Crew: Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., Michael Collins. Apollo 11 was the first manned lunar landing, which took place on July 20, 1969. The landing site was Mare Tranquillitatis at latitude 0°67' N and longitude 23°49' E. Armstrong and Aldrin collected 21.7 kilograms of soil and rock samples and deployed experiments.

1994: Hubble Space Telescope - USA & Europe Telescope photographed the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter.

1999: Deep Space 1 (DS1) - USA Asteroid and Comet Flyby - (launched 24 October 1998) flew by the Mars-crossing near-Earth asteroid 9969 Braille. The Deep Space 1 (DS1) is the first of a series of technology demonstration probes being developed by NASA's New Millennium Program. It again flew by comet Borrelly in September 2001.

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