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Themes > Science > Physics > Astrophysics > The History of High-Energy Astrophysics > 1900 - 1959 |
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13 Sep 1959 22:02 UT |
The USSR's Luna 2 spacecraft becomes the first human-made device to reach the Moon. It (intentionally) impacts the surface east of Mare Serenitatis. |
1 Oct 1958 |
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created, absorbing the former National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). |
31 Jan 1958 |
Launch of the first American satellite, Explorer 1, with a payload of approx 1 kg. |
4 Jan 1958 |
Sputnik 1 reenters the Earth's atmosphere. Its batteries had already failed by this date. The much heavier booster which carried it to orbit reentered earlier on 1 Dec 1957. |
3 Nov 1957 |
Successful launch of the first animal in space, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2. At this early stage in the space program, no system for a safe reentry had been developed: Laika was put to sleep after one week in orbit. |
4 Oct 1957 |
Successful launch of the first human-made satellite, Sputnik 1 by the USSR. |
1949 |
A Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) instrument aboard a V2 rocket detects X-rays from the Sun (in a 5 minute observation!): see Friedman et al. Phys. Rev., 83, 1025 (1951) for more details. |
8 Jul 1933 |
Karl Jansky discovers radio emission from the Milky Way: the birth of Radio Astronomy. |
1929 |
Invention of the Gieger-Mueller detector. |
16 Mar 1926 |
First successful flight of a liquid-propellant rocket, designed & built by Robert Hutchings Goddard. |
1925 |
Wernher von Braun straps six sky rockets to a toy wagon which provide thrust for a five block trip through his home town, terminated when the rockets exploded. Neither the explosion nor the stern lecture from his father which followed reduces his interest in rocketry. |
26 Apr 1920 |
The Shapley-Curtis "Scale of the Universe" debate. |
11 Nov 1918 |
End of World War I |
3 Mar 1915 |
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) created -- the forerunner to NASA -- with an annual budget of $5000. |
17 Dec 1903 |
Wright brothers make the first controlled flight in an airplane near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. |
1912 - 1914 |
Balloon flights by Hess and Kolhörster demonstrate the existence of extraterrestrial radiation (Cosmic rays). |
1900 |
Gamma rays are first discovered by Villard and are considered to be a highly energetic form of X-rays. |
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