Astronomy and Space Exploration
- August 7 - The United States launches Explorer 6 from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
- September 15 - Russian probe Luna 3 sends back first photos of the far side of Earth's Moon.
- September 19 - Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison establish the scientific rationale for SETI with the publishing of their seminal paper "Searching for Interstellar Communications" in Nature.
- November 24 - Yardymli meteorite makes a landfall in Azerbaijan.
- December 4 - Little Joe 2, a mission in the Mercury program, carries Sam the monkey into space.
- Coma Berenicids discovered.
Read more about this topic: 1959 In Science
Famous quotes containing the words astronomy, space and/or exploration:
“Awareness of the stars and their light pervades the Koran, which reflects the brightness of the heavenly bodies in many verses. The blossoming of mathematics and astronomy was a natural consequence of this awareness. Understanding the cosmos and the movements of the stars means understanding the marvels created by Allah. There would be no persecuted Galileo in Islam, because Islam, unlike Christianity, did not force people to believe in a “fixed” heaven.”
—Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan sociologist. Islam and Democracy, ch. 9, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (Trans. 1992)
“Oh, my. I’d forgotten how much I hate space travel.”
—George Lucas (b. 1944)
“For women who do not love us, as for the “disappeared”, knowing that we no longer have any hope does not prevent us form continuing to wait. We live on our guard, on watch; women whose son has gone asea on a dangerous exploration imagine at any minute, although it has long been certain that he has perished, that he will enter, miraculously saved, and healthy.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)