2016 – 17,000 Days = 46 Years, 6 Months, 15 Days since humans of Apollo 11 first landed on the Moon.

2004 – Discovery. Rover Opportunity finds sphericals in Martian Soil. They were hematite-rich objects, nicknamed “blueberries,” indicating past aqueous activity and providing evidence of a watery past on Mars. In 2012 Opportunity also discovered a similar type of sphere concentrated at the Kirkwood outcrop. 

1999 – NASA’s Mars  Global Surveyor spacraft successfully completed the aerobraking phase of the mission…. “During the aerobraking technique, the spacecraft uses frictional drag as it skims through Mars‘ thin upper atmosphere to alter the shape of its orbit around the planet. First tested in the final days of the Magellan mission to Venus in 1994,the technique is an innovative way of changing the spacecraft’s orbit while carrying less onboard fuel.” (see here for press release) 

1967 – Lunar Orbiter program: Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft.

Birthdays

1906 – Clyde Tombaugh, He discovered the planet Pluto in 1930 (d. 17 January 1997)