2013 – An analysis of a Martian rock sample collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover from Gale Crater, specifically the Yellowknife Bay area, revealed the presence of key chemical ingredients for life.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity (left) and the drill from NASA's Curiosity rover (right)
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity (left) and the drill from NASA’s Curiosity rover (right)

2012 – International Space Station Robonaut signs “Hello World”.

2007 – Chandra Space Telescope releases a new panorama which reveals thousands of black holes.

2002 – Astronomers on Earth finally detect Asteroid 2002 EM7, 300 to 400 meters (1,000 to 1,300 feet) in width, which came within 450,000 kilometers (288,000 miles) of Earth on
March 8th.

2002 – STS-109 lands at Kennedy Space Center after servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.

Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC
Shuttle Landing Facility

1999 – Asteroid 1864 Daedalus Closest Approach To Earth (1.331 AU)

1974 – Mars 6 lander separated from the flyby bus at an altitude of 48,000 kilometres. However, at 09:11:05 UTC, with the lander about to fire its retrorockets, all contact was lost. (Soviet Union)

Birthdays

Wally Schirra
Wally Schirra

1923 – Walter Marty Jr ‘Wally’ Schirra was an American naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, and was the only astronaut to have flown into space in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. (d. 3 May 2007)

Wally Schirra Insignia
Wally Schirra Insignia

1906 – Dorrit Hoffleit born. She was the author of the Bright Star Catalogue, a compendium of information on the 9,110 brightest stars in the sky; she also co-authored The General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes, containing precise distance measurements to 8,112 stars. Dorrit was an inspiration to thousands of students at Yale and was awarded the George Van Biesbroeck Prize by the American Astronomical Society for a lifetime of service to astronomy. (d. 9 April 2007)