2009 – Scientists found evidence of another object bombarding Jupiter, exactly 15 years after the first
impacts by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer, Anthony Wesley of Australia, that a new dark “scar” had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, in the morning between 3 and 9 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. and noon EDT) scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact.
1999 – Recovery of Liberty Bell 7 (Mercury 4, pilot Gus Grissom). A team led by Curt Newport and financed by the Discovery Channel, Oceaneering International, Inc. lifted the Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft off the floor of the Atlantic ocean and onto the deck of a recovery
ship. The spacecraft was found after a 14-year effort and today is a part of the permanent exhibit at
The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.
1969 – First humans on the Moon. Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong piloted the Eagle lander to a soft landing at 4:18 pm EDT at Tranquility Base. Armstrong reported “The Eagle Has Landed.”
And at 10:56 p.m., Armstrong, descending from Eagle’s ladder and touching one foot to the Moon’s surface, announced:
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
See Heroic Stories or “The First Lunar Landing, as told by the Astronauts.”
