January 15, 2018 - Simon Sees

Simon Sees Simon Marius was an accomplished astronomer who was a contemporary of Galileo. Born in Bavaria 445 years ago this week, Marius was a court mathematician and physician but also a successful astronomer who was among the first to use a telescope to study objects in the night sky. In addition to observing a comet in 1596 and Kepler’s supernova in 1604, Marius first observed Jupiter’s four largest moons around the same time Galileo did. Though the honor of the moons’ discovery goes to Galileo, Marius is responsible for the names assigned to them: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Marius observed objects even farther afield, and is credited with the first telescopic observation of the Andromeda Galaxy, which he likened to the diffused light of a candle glowing within a lantern.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & Digitized Sky Survey 2, Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

Weekly Calendar

January 15-21 2018

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 15

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Mercury 3° south of Moon

1973: Luna 21 lander and Lunokhod 2 rover land on Moon
1976: Helios 2 launched
2006: Stardust spacecraft returns samples of comet dust

Tuesday 16

New Moon 9:17 PM ET

1969: First docking of two human spacecraft (Soyuz 5 and Soyuz 4)
2003: STS-107 Columbia launched

Wednesday 17

1985: 1,037th and final Aerobee sounding rocket launched

Thursday 18

2002: Gemini South Observatory dedicated

Friday 19

1747: Johann Bode born
1851: Jacobus Kapteyn born
1965: Gemini II launched
2006: New Horizons launched

Saturday 20

Neptune 1.6° north of Moon

1573: Simon Marius born
1930: Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin born
1966: Apollo A-004 launched, first flight test of CSM hardware
1978: Progress 1 launched