Daily Extra :
Astronomy & Space Word of The Day
rift valley: an elongated valley formed by the depression of a block of the planet's crust between two faults or groups of faults of approximately parallel strike.
Today in History:
1610: Galileo Galilei first turned his telescope on Saturn
1973: Mars 5 - USSR Mars Orbiter launched. Mars 5 entered into orbit around Mars on February 12, 1974. It acquired imaging data for the Mars 6 and 7 missions.
1978: Viking 2 - USA Mars Orbiter/Lander - 3,399 kg - (September 9, 1975 - July 25, 1978) was deactivated when it ran out of altitude-control propellant. Viking 1 and 2 were designed after the Mariner spacecraft. They consisted of an orbiter and lander. The orbiter weighed 900 kg and the lander 600 kg. Viking 2 went into orbit about Mars on July 24, 1976. The lander touched down on August 7, 1976 at Utopia Planitia. Both landers had experiments to search for Martian micro-organism. The results of these experiments are still being debated. The landers provided detailed color panoramic views of the Martian terrain. They also monitored the Martian weather. The orbiters mapped the planet's surface, acquiring over 52,000 images. Viking 2 lander used Viking 1 orbiter as a communications relay, and had to be shut down at the same time as the orbiter on August 7, 1980.
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.