The Flight
Luna 1 was launched 2 January 1959 at 16:41 GMT (19:41 Moscow Time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome by a Luna 8K72 rocket.
Luna 1 became the first ever man-made object to reach the escape velocity of the Earth (what is also known as the second cosmic velocity), when it separated from its 1472 kg third stage. The third stage, 5.2 m long and 2.4 m in diameter, traveled along with Luna 1. On 3 January, 3:56:20 Moscow Time, at a distance of 119,500 km from Earth, a large (1 kg) cloud of sodium gas was released by the spacecraft, thus making this probe also the first artificial comet. This glowing orange trail of gas, visible over the Indian Ocean with the brightness of a sixth-magnitude star for a few minutes, was photographed by Mstislav Gnevyshev at the Mountain Station of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR near Kislovodsk. It served as an experiment on the behavior of gas in outer space. Luna 1 passed within 5995 km of the Moon's surface on 4 January after 34 hours of flight. It went into orbit around the Sun, between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
Read more about this topic: Luna 1
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the flight is not high the fall is not heavy.”
—Chinese proverb.