-
If this was true, then chromatic aberration could be eliminated by building a telescope which did not use a lens – a reflecting telescope. In late 1668 Isaac Newton built his first reflecting telescope. He chose an alloy (speculum metal) of tin and copper as the most suitable material for his objective mirror.
-
This was a very amazing invention that had changed everything.
-
The first animals ever intentionally sent into space were fruit flies launched aboard a V2 rocket in 1947. US scientists were studying the effects of radiation at high altitude.
-
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957
-
A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine equipped to launch submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. These submarines became a major weapon system in the Cold War because of their nuclear deterrence capability.
-
The Soviet Union launches a female dog into space on Sputnik II. Her name is Laika, which means "barker" in Russian. She lives for seven days, proving that animals (and presumably humans) can survive in space. There is no way to bring her back alive, so Laika is put to sleep. Sputnik II falls to Earth in April of the next year.
-
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Russian-Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961
-
The Orbiting Solar Observatory (abbreviated OSO) Program was the name of a series of eight American science satellites primarily intended to study the Sun, though they also included important non-solar experiments. Eight were launched successfully by NASA between 1962 and 1975 using Delta rockets. Their primary mission was to observe an 11-year sun spot cycle in UV and X-ray spectra. The initial seven (OSO 1–7) were built by Ball Aerospace, then known as Ball Brothers Research Corporation (BBRC)
-
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova is a retired Soviet cosmonaut and engineer, and the first woman to have flown in space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963
-
Luna 10 (E-6S series) was a 1966 Soviet Luna program, robotic spacecraft mission, also called Lunik 10. It was the first artificial satellite of the Moon
-
STS-1 was the first orbital flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. The first orbiter, Columbia, launched on 12 April 1981 and returned on 14 April, 54.5 hours later, having orbited the Earth 37 times. Columbia carried a crew of two – mission commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen
-
Pioneer 10 (originally designated Pioneer F) is an American space probe, weighing 258 kilograms, that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter.[1] Thereafter, Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California, and the space probe was manufactured by TRW.
-
Space Shuttle Challenger (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-099) was the second orbiter of NASA's space shuttle program to be put into service following Columbia. The shuttle was built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey, California. Its maiden flight, STS-6, started on April 4, 1983. It launched and landed nine times before breaking apart 73 seconds into its tenth mission, STS-51-L, on January 28, 1986, resulting in the death of all seven crew members.
-
The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40 AU) from Earth, as part of the solar system Family Portrait series of images. In the photograph, Earth is shown as a fraction of a pixel (0.12 pixel in size) against the vastness of space. The Voyager 1 spacecraft, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera a
-
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. With a 2.4-meter mirror, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra
