Astronomy and Space Exploration
- March 7 - Comet Kohoutek is discovered
- April 6 - Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft
- May 14 - Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.
- Solar eclipse of June 30, 1973 - Very long total solar eclipse visible in NE South America, the Atlantic, and central Africa. During the entire Second Millennium, only seven total solar eclipses exceeded seven minutes of totality. This was the last. Observers aboard a Concorde jet were able to stretch totality to about 74 minutes by flying along the path of the moon's umbra.
- July 25 - Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.
- November 3 - Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury (on March 29, 1974 it became the first space probe to reach that planet).
- December 3 - Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
- December 7 - The "Big Ear" at the Ohio State University Radio Observatory begins a full time SETI radio survey, running continuously until 1995.
Read more about this topic: 1973 In Science
Famous quotes containing the words astronomy, space and/or exploration:
“It is noticed, that the consideration of the great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind, and an indifference to death.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I would have broke mine eye-strings, cracked them, but
To look upon him, till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
Have turned mine eye and wept.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I call her old. She has one family
Whose claim is good to being settled here
Before the era of colonization,
And before that of exploration even.
John Smith remarked them as he coasted by....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)