Facts about NASA
- 10
Launched in 1972, NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft became the first human-made object to escape the solar system, traveling beyond Neptune's orbit at 36,373 miles per hour.
- 09
At 14.7 billion kilometers away, the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, revealing a geologically diverse world with nitrogen ice plains, water mountains 3.5 miles high, and a thin methane atmosphere.
- 08
After the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry on February 1, 2003, NASA grounded the entire shuttle fleet for 2.5 years while engineers redesigned thermal protection systems and launch procedures.
- 07
On April 20, 1990, NASA's Magellan spacecraft completed its radar mapping mission of Venus, revealing a geologically active planet with over 1,600 volcanoes and vast highland regions.
- 06
Twenty-four astronauts traveled to the Moon between 1968 and 1972 during NASA's Apollo program, with twelve actually landing on the lunar surface.
- 05
Between 1981 and 2011, NASA's Space Shuttle program completed 135 missions, orbiting Earth 566 million miles while carrying 355 astronauts and 3.3 million pounds of cargo.
- 04
Perseverance rover discovered organic molecules in 3.5-billion-year-old Martian rocks during its 2021 Jezero Crater mission, suggesting potential ancient microbial life.
- 03
Voyager 1, launched by NASA in 1977, traveled 15 billion miles and remains the most distant human-made object, still transmitting data after 47 years.
- 02
The Hubble Space Telescope, launched by NASA in 1990, has captured over 1.5 million observations and produced approximately 20,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers.
- 01
In 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts collected 47.5 pounds of lunar samples during their 21.5-hour moon surface mission.