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First astronauts selected

In 1959, NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts for project Mercury. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton were chosen from 110 applicants. Their training program at Langley, which ranged from a graduate-level course in introductory space science to simulator training and scuba-diving. Project Mercury, NASA's first high profile program, was an effort to learn if humans could survive in space. NASA required astronaut candidates to be male, not over 40 years old, not more than 5' 11" height and in excellent physical condition. On 5 May 1961, Shepard became the first American in space

Canadian earthquake   In 1700, an earthquake, the most intense Canada has ever seen, hit the sea floor off the British Columbia coast. Long before Europeans first landed on Vancouver Island, native legend tells of a great disaster. The sea rose in a heaving wave, and landslides buried a sleeping village. Myth was resolved with science in 2003 by government research. Earthquakes of that intensity cause tidal waves, and Japanese written history tells of a massive tsunami striking fishing villages the next day along the coast of Honshu, killing hundreds. Coupled with geological evidence of the level 9 quake, the connection was clear. Mythology and seismology came together to validate history.

Small satellite-tracking devices attached to sea turtles swimming off Florida's coast have delivered first-of-its-kind data that could help unlock they mystery of what endangered turtles do during the "lost years."

"lost years" refers to the time after turtles hatch and head to sea where they remain for many years before returning to near-shore waters as large juveniles

The time period is often referred to as the "lost years" because not much has been known about where the young turtles go and how they interact with their oceanic environment

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) space probe thundered to space

Nov. 18

from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 1:28 p.m. EST atop a powerful Atlas V rocket

Velcro

In 1978, Velcro, the hook-and-loop fastener, was released. It was developed by Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral, who noticed how thistle burrs clung to his clothing during a hike in the mountains. Using a microscope, he discovered their natural hook-like shape. From 1948, he worked with a local weaver from a textile plant to design a "locking tape". The important discovery was accidental - that nylon, when sewn under ultraviolet light, formed industructable hooks. Velcro uses two tapes, one with stiff "hooks" like the burrs which clings to the second tape with soft "loops" like the fabric of his pants. The trademarked name Velcro comes from "vel" or velvet and "cro" from the French word crochet which means hook

First photo of sun

Opportunity,

has just discovered the strongest evidence to date for an environment favorable to ancient Martian biology

Opportunity’s analysis of a new rock target named “Esperance” confirmed that it is composed of a “clay that had been intensely altered by relatively neutral pH water – representing the most favorable conditions for biology that Opportunity has yet seen in the rock histories it has encountered

The Race to the Moon book’s description is probably a little better

The way back, the spacecraft started drifting off its trajectory, and now they had to make their midcourse corrections to get back

turns out that, too, we had practiced in some simulation somewhere. It’s not very accurate, but it doesn’t have to be

Se flere videoer fra VGTV

3-400 kilometer i timen knuste meteoritten taket.

meteoritten

interior unlike that of any other rocky planet in our solar system and a surprisingly dynamic history,

remained geologically active for a surprisingly large chunk of its evolutionary history, researchers said

planet's huge iron core is even larger than they had thought

In 1929, Edwin Hubble communicated the now classic paper that first showed the universe was expanding (and later provided observational evidence for the Big Bang theory).

Expanding universe

Spacecrafts dock

In 1969, the first docking of two manned spacecraft took place between the Soviet Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5.

Bell Rock Lighthouse

the Bell Rock Lighthouse was lit for the first time. Using 24 lanterns, it began flashing its warning light, 11 miles out off the east coast of Scotland atop a white stone tower rising over 30m (100ft) high. It was built by Robert Stevenson on a treacherous sandstone reef, which, except at low tides, lies submerged just beneath the waves. Since then, no repair has been necessary to its stonework. It is the oldest sea-washed lighthouse in existence. It was Stevenson's finest achievement, regarded by many as the finest lighthouse ever built, the most outstanding engineering achievement of the 19th century. In the centuries before, the dangerous Bell Rock had claimed thousands of lives, as vessels were wrecked on its razor-sharp serrated rocks.

Ceres observation interruption

In 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi made a 24th observation of the position of Ceres, the asteroid he discovered between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, on 1 Jan 1801. It was the first and largest of the dwarf planets now known. After this, it moved into the light of the Sun, and was lost to view for most of the rest of the year. To mathematically relocate Ceres, Carl Gauss, age 24, took up the challenge to calculate its orbital path, based on the limited number of observations available. His method was tedious, requiring 100 hours of calculation. He began with a rough approximation for the unknown orbit, and then used it to produce a refinement, which became the subject of another improvement.. And so on. Astronomers using them found his results in close agreement as they located Ceres again 25 Nov-31 Dec 1801.«

Silly Putty

In 1950, Silly Putty was introduced as a toy by Peter Hodgson, a marketing consultant, who packaged one-ounce portions of the rubber-like material in plastic eggs. It could be stretched, rolled into a bouncing ball, or used to transfer colored ink from newsprint. The original discovery was made in 1943 by James Wright who combined silicone oil and boric acid at the laboratories of General Electric. He was researching methods of making synthetic rubber, but at the time no significant application existed for the material. However, it was passed around as a curiosity. Hodgson saw a sample and realized its potential simply for entertainment and coined its name for marketing it as a toy. Its popularity made him a millionaire

Marie Byrd Land is a desolate region of Antarctica buried deep beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Historic eruptions have punctured the ice sheet, creating a chain of volcanoes amid the ice

researchers have shown that molten rock still stirs deep underground