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Copernicus proposed an alternative theory--that the Earth was a planet orbiting the Sun, and that all planets moved in circles, one inside the other.
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Johannes Kepler states his first two empirical laws of planetary motion,law of ellipses and law of equal areas, stating that the orbits of the planets are elliptical rather than circular, and thus resolving many ancient problems with planetary models.
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Galileo made his first telescope in 1609. He modeled it after telescopes produced in other parts of Europe that could magnify objects by three times. later that same year he created a telescope that could magnify objects by twenty times. With this telescope, he was able to look at the moon, discover the four satellites of Jupiter, observe a supernova, verify the phases of Venus, and discover sunspots.
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Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers Jupiters Great Red Spot, which is a great storm that appears to be neverending.
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Jean Richer and Cassini measure the astronomical unit to be about 138,370,000 km.
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in 1781, William Herschel discovers Uranus while he was taking a telescopic survey of the northern sky. Six years later, 1787, he also discovers Uranus's moons Titania and Oberon.
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U.S. rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard launches the first liquid fueled rocket from a farm in Auburn, Massachusetts. The 4-foot high rocket called "Nell" reaches an altitude of 41 feet and a speed of about 60 miles per hour. The flight lasts only 2 1/2 seconds, but guides the way for the U.S. rocket program.
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The Soviet Union launch the first succesful artificial Earth satelite. It was about the size of a beach ball, it about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments.
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Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human to venture into space. The Vostok 1 spacecraft made one complete orbit around Earth in 108 minutes, and reached altitudes of 112 to 203 miles. The flight lasted only one hour and 48 minutes.
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Alan B. Shepard Jr. was the first American in space. He flew aboard the Freedom 7 and flys above earth for 14.8 minutes.
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Astronaut John H. Glenn was launched into orbit aboard an Atlas D rocket, where he became the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. He made a total of 3 complete orbits, and the flight time was 4 hours and 56 minutes.
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Edward H. White II performs the first American space walk through June 3-7 in 1965 during a Gemini mission.
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Apollo 11 was the first spaceflight that landed , Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the Moon. While on the moon Neil Armstrong sateted "...one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"
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Apollo 8 and its 3 man crew were the first to orbit the moon. They sent pictures and greetings to Earth on Christmas day.
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Mariner 9 was launched May 30, 1971. On November 13 it went into orbit around Mars. At that time, there was a large global dust storm on Mars that distorted Mariner's view of the surface. The storm eventually passed and in the year after its arrival at Mars, Mariner transmitted over 7,000 pictures of the surface and measured the composition and structure of the Martian atmosphere.
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The last Apollo mission to the moon was apollo 17. It was the only one to include a scientist.
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The first shuttle spacecraft, the Columbia Shutle, which is the first reusable airplane-like craft to fly in space.
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The frist women to fly in space is Sally K. Ride, and she flew on the STS-7
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Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off, carrying the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The telescope is successfully deployed, but is found to contain a majorly flawed primary mirror resulting in fuzzy images. The mirror itself couldn't be fixed or changed; so they developed corrective optics for Hubble's mirror.
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Zyra was the name of the first International space station to be launched. it was not habitable until 2000.
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SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches the world's most advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk to revolutionize space transportation, with the main goal of allowing people to live on other planets. Today, SpaceX is advancing the boundaries of space technology through its Falcon launch vehicles and Dragon spacecraft.
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The Atlantis space shuttle was the last NASA space shuttle launch. It was launched to bring supplies to the international space station.
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Curiosity landed at Aug. 5, near the foot of a mountain three miles tall and 96 miles in diameter inside Gale Crater. During about a two-year mission, the rover will investigate whether Mars ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life or can sustain life in the future.
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73 seconds after the Challenge was launched it exploded in the Kennedy space station, killing its crew of 7 people.
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The Chinese recored the first known meteor shower in 687 B.C. called the Lyrid meteor shower.
