Space Exploration Timeline

270BC

270

Aristarchus, an ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer, suggest the theory that the sun is the center of our solar system. (PS, Mrs. Hicks, please ignore the exact date thingy, it wont let me go back to BC, and this is the only site that works even the slightest bit on this computer, so... :D)

1514AD

Apr 25, 1514

Nicolaus Copernicus suggested that the earth revolves aroudn the sun. not that it is the center of the solar system, but that Earth spins around it.

1572AD

Apr 25, 1572

Tycho Brahe observes and records a supernova (Death of a star) in the Cassiopeia constellation.

1608AD

Apr 25, 1608

Hans Lippershay, a Dutch lens maker, invents the telescope. (Or so the story goes.)

1609AD

Apr 25, 1609

Galileo Galilei modifies Lippershay's telescope design. (Most think he invented the telescope, but he did not.)

1923AD

Apr 25, 1923

This is the year that Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer, discovered distant spiraling nebulae, which turned out to be completely different galaxies than ours!

1930AD

Feb 18, 1930

This is the day that Clyde Tombaugh, an American astronomer, discovered the dwarf planet Pluto.

1957AD

Oct 4, 1957

This is the day the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satallite in Earth's orbit.

1961AD

Apr 12, 1961

Yuri Gagarin, a Russian pilot and cosmonaut, became te first man to venture into outerspace, and the first man to orbit Earth.

1963AD

Jun 16, 1963

Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian cosmonaut, becomes the first woman to enter space.

1969AD

Jul 16, 1969

This is the day Apollo 11 was launched, which caried Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin to the pride of being the first men on the moon. (Technically, Michael only orbited the moon while the others were on it's surface, but hey! He's lucky he even got to go.)

1977AD

Aug 20, 1977

This is the day the of the launch of the first of the Voyager twin spacecrafts, which were designed to study Jupiter and Saturn only, but have made many more discoveries than that. (Cool fact : Unlike you might think, Voyager 2 was launched 16 days BEFORE Voyager 1. Weird, huh?)

1990AD

Apr 24, 1990

This is the day that the Edwin Hubble telescope (Remember me mentioning Edwin earlier?) was launched to measure exact distances between Earth and the Cepheid variable stars, but has made many more interesting discoveries. (Note : The picture that goes along with this is NOT the Hubble Telescope, it is just one of it's most famous findings, which are the Pillars of Creation, some "elephant trunks" of gas and dust found in the Eagle Nebula, which is 7,000 light years away from Earth)

1994AD

Jan 8, 1994

This is the day the longest space flight ever began. It was 483 dyas and 18 hours long, and was conducted by Valeri Polyakov, a Russian cosmonaut.

1996AD

Jan 31, 1996

This is the day the NEAR spacecraft is launched on it's 4 year journey to the asteroid Eros, so it can study the object. (This was the first mission of it's kind.)

1998AD

Oct 29, 1998

This is the day John Glenn, an American astronaut, becomes the oldest person in space, at age 77.

2001AD

Feb 12, 2001

After orbiting Eros for about 12 months, NEAR makes the first landing on an asteroid in history.

2004AD

Jan 4, 2004

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyktvC7w7Js This is the day Spirit, became the first rover on Mars, followed by it's twin, Opportunity, which landed just three weeks after Spirit. (Hint : Click the link, it's a cool video)

2005AD (part 1)

Jan 14, 2005

This is the day the Huygens probe made the first landing on an alien moon, Titan (which orbits Saturn).

2005AD (part 2)

Jul 4, 2005

This is the day the Deep Impact space probe made the first landing on a comet in history. Other comet mission, like Stardust, were just flybys, but not this one. (Note : I couldn't find a picture from the actual landing, so I used an artist's concept.)

2006AD

Jan 19, 2006

On this day, the Stardust spacecraft returned the first comet samples to Earth's surface.

2009AD

Mar 7, 2009

On this day, the Kepler space craft was launched in hope of finding Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

2010AD

Dec 8, 2010

This day made amazing history. It was the day of the first commercial orbit of our home planet, Earth. It was conducted by the organization SpaceX.

2011AD (part 2)

Jul 16, 2011

This is the day the Dawn spacecraft started to orbit the asteroid Vesta. This was the first mission of it's kind.

2011AD (part 1)

Sep 8, 2011

This was a very sad day, because it marked the beginning of the end of the American Space Shuttle program. This is the launch date of the orbiter Atlantis, on the final mission of it's kind.

127BC

Apr 25, 2027

This is the year Almagest, the largest star catalouge at that time, was published. It contained record of 1022 stars, while the most recent count had been 850.

130BC

Apr 25, 2030

This is the year the first accurate star map was created!