4 Feb 0452 The Mayan city of Tikal has a monolith in hieroglyphics that reports an inferior conjunction of Venus. 4 Jul 1054 Chinese and Arabian observers first documented the massive supernova of the Crab Nebula, It was reportedly six times brighter than Venus and was only outshone by the sun and moon and could be observed in broad daylight for 23 days. 1610 Galileo Galilei observes the phases of Venus. 1631 The first predicted transit of Venus, pedicted by Kepler, is observed. 1639 The first observation of transit of Venus occurred. Only two people record the event. 1639 Jeremiah Horrocks observes a transit of Venus. 1665 Giovanni Cassini determines the rotational speeds of Jupiter, Mars and Venus. 1686 Cassini reports seeing a satellite orbiting Venus. 1716 Edmund Halley suggests a high-precision measurement of the Sun-Earth distance by timing the transit of Venus. 1761 Russian poet/scientist Mikhail Lomonosov discovers the atmosphere of Venus. 1882 The atmosphere of Venus is detected during transit. Copyright (c) 1999-2010, HistoryMole.com, All rights reserved. Page 1
1894 Venus is both a morning star and evening star. 1956 US Lab detects high-temperature microwave radiation from Venus 1959 MIT detect the first radar echo from Venus 1959 The first known radar contact is made with Venus 11 Mar 1960 US Pioneer 5 is launched into solar orbit between Earth and Venus. 12 Feb 1961 Soviet Venera 1 launches toward Venus for a Venus flyby. 1961 Soviet Union fires a rocket from Sputnik V to Venus. 27 Aug 1962 US Mariner 2 is launched, and makes the first US visit to another planet when it performs a flyby of Venus on 14 December 1 1962. It went off air on 3 January 1963 and is now in a solar orbit. 1962 The Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn are aligned within 16 degrees of each other. 1964 USSR launches Zond 1 to Venus; no data returned 1965 Venera 3 launched, 1st to land on another planet (crashes into Venus) 1965 Venera 2 launched by Soviet Union toward Venus Copyright (c) 1999-2010, HistoryMole.com, All rights reserved. Page 2
1966 Venera 3 becomes 1st man-made object to impact on a planet (Venus) Launch of Mariner V for Venus fly-by Mariner 5 makes fly-by of Venus Venera 4 sends the first data from below the clouds of Venus USSR launches Venera 4 for parachute landing on Venus Soviet Venera 4 becomes the 1st probe to send data back from Venus USSR Venera 5 launched for 1st successful planet landing (Venus) Russian probe Venera 6 landed on Venus USSR's Venera 6 launched for parachute landing on Venus Venera 5 lands on Venus, returns data on atmosphere Venera 7 launched by USSR for soft landing on Venus The first successful landing on Venus (USSR) Soviet Venera 7 is 1st spacecraft to land on another planet (Venus) Copyright (c) 1999-2010, HistoryMole.com, All rights reserved. Page 3
1972 Venera 8 launched to Venus 1974 US Mariner 10 returns 1st close-up photos of Venus' cloud structure USSR launches Venera 10 for Venus landing Venera 9 returns the first pictures of the surface of Venus Soviet spacecraft Venera 9 soft-lands on Venus Venera 9, first craft to orbit the planet Venus launched USSR's Venera 10 makes day-side Venus landing USSR launches Venera 9 for Venus landing Pioneer Venus 1 begins orbiting Venus US launches Pioneer Venus 1; produces 1st global radar map of Venus Pioneer-Venus 2 with 5 atmospheric probes launched toward Venus Pioneer Venus 2 drops 5 probes into atmosphere of Venus Pioneer Venus 1 goes into orbit around Venus Copyright (c) 1999-2010, HistoryMole.com, All rights reserved. Page 4
1982 Russian spacecraft Venera 14 lands on Venus and sends back data 1985 En route to Halley's Comet, USSR's Vega 2 drops lander on Venus 1985 USSR's Vega 1 deposits lander on surface of Venus 1989 US launches Magellan to Venus 1989 Conjunction of Venus, Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and the Moon. 1990 US Magellan spacecraft lands on Venus 1990 Galileo flies by Venus 24 Aug 2006 The "Planet Definition" Resolution was put to the 2006 General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union. the outcome decided the defintiion of what objects in the Solar System should be classified as "Planets". Pluto looses its status as a Planet retuning the total number of "Planets" in our solar system to eight. Copyright (c) 1999-2010, HistoryMole.com, All rights reserved. Page 5