2008 – SpaceX launches, at 4:15 PDT, the first-ever private spacecraft, the Falcon 1, into orbit. The SpaceX launch site is on Omelek Island, about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.
1999 – NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory releases a stunning image of the Crab Nebula, the spectacular remains of a stellar explosion, revealing something never before seen. The brilliant ring around the nebula’s heart is waves of high-energy particles that appear to have been flung outward over the distance of a light year from the central star, and high-energy jets of particles blast away from the neutron star in a direction perpendicular to the spiral.
