February 1, 2003: NASA Tragedy Rocks The Nation

On February 1, 2003, the world watched in shock as the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, tragically killing all seven astronauts aboard. The disaster occurred just 16 minutes before the shuttle was scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center, marking…

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November 12, 1980: NASA Sees The Rings Up Close

Voyager 1’s close encounter with Saturn on November 12, 1980, marked a decisive turning point in humanity’s study of the outer solar system—a moment when a 1,800-pound machine, flung from Earth three years earlier, delivered images and measurements that fundamentally redefined scientific understanding of…

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July 25, 1976: NASA Sees A ‘Face’ On Mars

On July 25, 1976, during its thirty-sixth orbit around the red planet, NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft snapped a black-and-white photograph that would ignite decades of speculation, myth-making, and scientific debate. The image—catalogued as frame 035A72—showed a portion of the Martian surface in the region…

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