Hi everybody

Here is the latest article from the Astronomy site at BellaOnline.com.

Moons of Mars – Facts for Kids
Earth's moon is “the Moon” because it was the only one humans had ever seen until 1610. That's when Galileo discovered moons orbiting Jupiter. By 1876 astronomers had found moons around all of the outer planets. So why did it take until 1877 for someone to find the moons of our neighbor Mars?
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art304471.asp

*Solar eclipse coming soon*
There's a lot of useful information, links, and interesting things about solar eclipses on this forum thread: http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/918130/American_Eclipse_August_21st#Post918130

*Space missions*

(1) August 3, 2004: NASA launched the MESSENGER spacecraft to Mercury. Its mission was to study Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field.
(2) August 4, 2006: the Phoenix Mars Lander was launched. The program was a partnership of universities in several countries directed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Its purpose was to look for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars.
(3) August 4, 2011: the Juno spacecraft was launched to Jupiter. It's now getting amazing close-up pictures of Jupiter.
(4) August 6, 1961: Vostok 2 was launched. Cosmonaut Gherman Titov became the second man in space and carried out the first full-day space mission and was the first person to sleep in space.
(5) August 6, 2012: NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars. Five years later the rover is still providing data that help to develop an understanding of Mars.
(6) August 8, 1989: ESA's Hipparcos observatory was launched. It was the first space experiment devoted to the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial objects on the sky.

*Birthdays*

(1) August 1, 1818: American astronomer Maria Mitchell was the first American woman to discover a comet, the first to be a college professor, and the first woman to be elected to scientific societies in the USA. http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art181435.asp
(3) August 5, 1930: Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on another world.

Please visit http://astronomy.bellaonline.com/Site.asp for even more great content about Astronomy. I hope to hear from you sometime soon, either in the forum http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php/forums/323/1/Astronomy or in response to this email message. I welcome your feedback!

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I wish you clear skies.

Mona Evans, Astronomy Editor
http://astronomy.bellaonline.com

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