Apollo 1 Tragedy [January 27, 1967]

On January 27, 1967, three NASA astronauts, Roger B. Chaffee (b. February 15, 1935), Virgil I. Grissom (b. April 3, 1926), and Edward H. White II (b. November 14, 1930) died when a flash fire swept through the Apollo 1 command module during a launch rehearsal test. The three men inside perished despite the best …

Neptune became the outermost planet on January 21, 1979

On January 21, 1979, a rare phenomenon occurred in our solar system: Neptune, the 8th planet from the Sun, took over Pluto and became the outermost planet as Pluto moved closer due to their highly elliptical orbits. Pluto was still a planet back then (good old days!).

The first soft landing on Titan was performed by the Huygens spacecraft on January 14, 2005

On January 14, 2005, the Huygens spacecraft, the atmospheric entry robotic probe part of the Casini-Huygens mission performed the first soft landing on Titan. As of 2023, it is the only one accomplished in the outer Solar System and was also the first on a moon other than Earth’s, and the most distant landing ever.