2004 – The individual peaks of the Columbia Hills on Mars were named after the seven astronauts who died in STS-107 Columbia tragedy on Febraruy 1, 2003. Spirit spent a few years exploring the Columbia Hills until it ceased to function in 2010.
2004 – Oxygen and carbon in the atmosphere of a Solar System is detected for the first time. NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet HD 209458b, with a surface tempurature of 1,000 Celsius, passing in front of its parent star.
1977 – After 768.82 days Salyut 4, a Soviet space station launched on December 26, 1974, is deorbited.
Birthdays
1551 – Nicolaus Reimers, was a German astronomer and a bitter rival of Tycho Brahe (d. 16 October 1600)
1786 – Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. In the theory of the conjugate axis and of the moment of inertia of bodies he enumerated the principle now known as Binet’s theorem. (d. 12 May 1856)