Some Dates in Starry History

1543 Nicolaus Copernicus publishes his idea of a Heliostatic solar system in his book 'On the Revolutions of Heavenly Bodies'.

1609 Johann Kepler publishes his first two laws of planetary motion. The first law says that planets orbit the Sun in ellipses, and the second shows planets move faster when closer to the Sun and slower when further away.

1609 Galileo uses a telescope to observe the Moon, the phases of Venus, the moon's of Jupiter, and many more things heavenly.

1619 Johann Kepler publishes his third law of planetary motion. The third law states that the distance a planet is from the Sun is directly proportional to the time it will take to make one orbit.

1647 Johann Hevelius makes the first map of the Moon.

1650 on 28 Nov the FIRST MARKINGS ON MARS RECORDED by Huygens (Syrtis Major). These helped to work out the rotation of the planet.

1655 DISCOVERY OF TITAN by Christiaan Huygens. He also gave the correct explanation for the rings of Saturn.

1664 Jupiter's Great Red Spot is discovered by Robert Hooke.

1666 Giovanni Domenico Cassini observed the POLAR CAPS OF MARS.

1668 Isaac Newton reinvents the reflecting telescope invented by Leonard Digges in the 16th Century.

1675 Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers the gap in Saturn's rings.

1675 ROYAL GREENWICH OBSERVATORY founded.

1676 Ole Romer calculates the speed of light from observation of eclipses of Jupiter's moons.

1687 Isaac Newton publishes the Pricipia, which includes, among other things, the law of gravitation and the laws of motion.

1724 Total Eclipse in Britain - next one 1927. 1735 John Harrison constructs his first marine chronometer (HI) to try and win the prize for accurate time-keeping at sea.

1750 Thomas Wright published his theory on the appearance of the Milky Way, which he says is due to our viewpoint within the flattened disc shape of our Galaxy. Immanuel Kant carried on the ideas by saying the Galaxy is a disc due to rotation, and that distant nebulae found by Charles Messier may also be similar in shape.

1752 The Gregorian Calendar arrives in Britain, and in the re-ordering September 4th became September 14th!

1755 Immanuel Kant publishes the 'Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens' which suggests the planets formed from a cloud of primordial matter.

1761 FMV Lomonosov discovers the atmosphere of Venus as it crossed the Sun's disc (a transit).

1781 URANUS is discovered by William Herschel.

1781 Comet hunter Charles Messier publishes his famous catalogue of deep-sky objects.

1783 John Mitchell suggested DARK STARS may exist whose gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. The first idea of Black Holes.

1784 John Goodricke identifies the star Delta Cephei in the constellation of Cepheus, the King, is a variable (i.e. it changes brightness).

1786 A comprehensive deep-sky catalogue is published by William Herschel. Later, the revised larger version becomes the New General Catalogue (NGC).

1800 William Herschel discovers infrared radiation. 1801 1 Jan The first asteroid Ceres is discovered by Giuseppi Piazzi.

1814 Joseph von Fraunhofer identifies dark lines in the Sun's spectrum. 1838 Fredrich Bessel uses Parallax for the first time to measure the distance of a star (61 Cygni).

1840 JW Draper takes the first photograph of the Moon. Bond photographs the Moon in 1850.

1846 NEPTUNE is discovered jointly by John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier.

1850 The first stars are photographed (Castor and Vega).

1859 Kirchoff correctly describes the dark lines in the spectra of the Sun and stars.

1866 The connection between comets and meteors was first described by Schiaparelli.

1877 Schiaparelli announced observation of 'Canali' on Mars. He asks people not to come to the wrong conclusion.

1882 Transit of Venus - next one 2004.

1894 Lowell Obsevatory was established in Flagstaff, Arizona primarily to study Mars.

1905 Einstein publishes his Special Theory of Relativity.

1912 The study of short period variables in the Small Magellanic Cloud leads Henrietta Leavitt to discover the Cepheid period-luminosity law.

1815 Einstein publishes his General Theory of Relativity.

1918 Studying the distances of globular clusters using RR Lyrae type variable stars, and their positions in our galaxy, Harlow Shapley gives the first accurate estimate of the size of our Galaxy and the position of the solar system within it.

1929 Edwin Hubble work, finding Cepheids in M31 using the Hooker Telescope on Mt. Wilson, shows that galaxies are external systems. Using the measured redshift of distant galaxies he also found the Universe to be expanding.

1930 PLUTO is discovered by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.

1940 George Gamow and Ralph Alpher attempt to describe for the first time the conditions in the Big Bang.

1947 14 Oct The X-1, piloted by Chuck Yaeger, was dropped from a B-52 bomber at 37,000 feet and the sound barrier was broken for the first time.
Web: www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x1/

1952 Walter Baade, using the Palomar reflector, showed there are two types of Cepheid, and doubled the size of the Universe!

1957 The world's first giant radio astronomy dish began operating at Jodrell Bank. It was renamed the Lovell Telescope in 1987.

1957 on 4 Oct The first artificial satellite, the 184-pound SPUTNIK 1, was launched by the Soviet Union.

1959 The Russian LUNA 2 became the first craft to impact on the Moon.

1961 on 12 Apr Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth.

1961 on 5 May Alan Shepherd technically became the first American in space, but his flight was sub-orbital.

1962 on 20 Feb John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth (3 times) in his MERCURY "Friendship 7" capsule. His flight lasted four hours 55 minutes.

1962 The first U.S. lunar impact - RANGER 4.

1963 on 16 Jun Soviet Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to orbit the Earth. Her flight lasted 70 hours and 50 minutes.

1965 The Background Radiation is identified by Robert Bell and Arno Penzias at the Bell Research Laboratories.

1965 on 18 Mar Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov made the first spacewalk during a 26 hour flight.

1966 Russian's LUNA 9 succeeded in soft landing on the Moon, whilst LUNA 10 became the first successful craft to orbit the Moon.

1966 SURVEYOR 1 was the first U.S. craft to gently touch down, and Lunar Orbiter 1 was their first Moon orbiter.

1969 on 20 Jul APOLLO 11 land the first men on the Moon: Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin.

1971 on 19 May The Soviet MARS 2 spacecraft became the first Earth object to land on Mars. However, it doesn't work.

1971 From an X-ray source identified with a star HDE 226868, Cygnus X-1 becomes the first candidate for a black hole.

1972 on 2 Mar PIONEER 10 launch. First probe through the asteroid belt, and to encounter Jupiter in Dec 73. Also became the first probe to leave the solar system on 13 Jun 83.

1976 on 20 Jul VIKING 1 became the first craft to land successfully on Mars. It worked for 6½ years on the Plain of Chryse (Chryse Planitia).

1976 on 3 Sep VIKING 2 landed on the Plain of Utopia (Utopia Planitia).

1977 on 20 Aug VOYAGER 2 launch. Two probes sent to investigate only Jupiter & Saturn. Encounters: Jupiter on 9 Jul 79, Saturn on 25 Aug 91, Uranus on 25 Jan 85, and Neptune on 25 Aug 89. Neptune's gravity sent the craft southward out of the ecliptic. 5 Sep VOYAGER 1 launch on a faster trajectory than Voyager 2. Jupiter was encountered on 5 Mar 79, and Saturn on 12 Nov 80. A Titan encounter meant a slingshot northward out of the solar system.

1979 on 1 Sep the U.S. probe PIONEER 11 passed Saturn discovering an additional ring and two new moons.

1986 on 28 Jan Shuttle CHALLENGER explodes 73 seconds after launch.

1989 on 18 Oct GALILEO Mission launch. Its two year primary mission to study Jupiter started on 7 Dec 95. Galileo was the first probe to encounter an asteroid: Gaspra in Oct 91.

1990 on 24 Apr HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE launch. A 12.5-ton observatory that orbits the Earth every 90 minutes.

1995 on 17 Nov Infrared Space Observer (ISO) launch. A superfluid Helium telescope which conducted observations until April 98.

1996 on 17 Feb NEAR EARTH ASTEROID RENDEZVOUS (NEAR) launch. The first mission to study an asteroid in orbit. NEAR arrived at Eros on 14 Feb 2000 for a year long study followed by a landing.

1996 on 4 Dec MARS PATHFINDER launch. Arrived at Mars on 4 Jul 97 after a 7 months cruise for a one month study. It carried Sojourner, the first rover on Mars.

1996 on 7 Dec MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR launch. Arrived at Mars on 12 Sep 97 to take high resolution images and to study the gravity and atmosphere.

1997 on 13 Oct CASSINI Mission launch. A seven year journey to Saturn followed by a four year study. It carries the ESA Huygens probe for the study of Titan. Arrives in Jul 2004.

1998 on 20 Nov 1st INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION launch. After a flawless launch the Russian Zayra Module (20-tonne 12.4m) developed a few minor problems including one antenna failing to unfold.

1998 on 4 Dec 98 1st Shuttle launch to the INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (Endeavour STS-88) on an 11 day 19 hour mission to connect the Unity and Zarya modules. Previous problems with the Zayra's antenna were fixed - by poking it.

1999 Total Eclipse in Britain - next one 23 Sep 2090 (but that doesn't touch land!).

2004 on Jun 8 Transit of Venus (crosses the face of the Sun) - next one 6 Jun 2012, then 11 Dec 2117.