Daily Extra :
Astronomy & Space Word of The Day
Celestial Object: Any of the natural objects that can be seen in our sky, including stars, planets, moons, asteroids, galaxies, and comets.
Today in History:
1863 - Annie Jump Cannon born, pioneer American classifier of stellar spectra; she brought to completion the Henry Draper Catalog, which became the basis for all modern astronomical stellar spectroscopy. It contains 225,320 stars.
1972: Apollo 17 becomes the final astronaut mission to land on the Moon. (December 7-19, 1972) Crew: Eugene A. Cernan, Harrison H. Schmitt, and Ronald B. Evans. Cernan and Schmitt landed on the moon on December 12, 1972. The landing site was Taurus-Littrow at latitude 20°10' N and longitude 30°46' E. They returned 110.5 kg of rock and soil samples. The astronauts covered 30.5 kilometers in the lunar rover during a 75-hour stay.
1998: Launch of Mars Climate Orbiter, later burned up in Mars atmosphere.