Image: NASA/James Webb
Every step taken in space exploration echoes Neil Armstrong’s famous words: “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Image: NASA
From launching a dog into space to photographing a black hole, here is a list of nine jaw-dropping “firsts” in space exploration that mark one giant leap for mankind.
Image: NASA
In 1946, a V-2 missile launched from New Mexico captured the first picture of Earth from an altitude of over 100 km, where the atmosphere ends and outer space begins.
Image: wikipedia.org/public domain
On November 3, 1957, a female dog named Laika was launched into space by the Soviet Union and became the first animal to orbit Earth.
Image: wikipedia.org/public domain
On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union became the first human to be launched into space. He circled the Earth at 27,400 km/hr in 108 minutes.
Image: wikipedia.org/Mil.ru
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission.
Image: wikipedia.org/public domain
On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito travelled to the International Space Station (ISS) by paying $20 million, making him the first person to self-fund a journey to space.
Image: wikipedia.org/public domain
On August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 became the first human-made object to escape the heliosphere—the outermost boundary of the solar system—into interstellar space.
Image: NASA
In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) captured the first image of a black hole, M87*, with an estimated diameter 51% larger than the Milky Way.
Image: NASA
On August 23, 2023, India successfully landed Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander on the lunar south pole, making it the first country to do so.
Image: ISRO
In January 2024, the James Webb telescope observed JADES-GS-z14-0, the oldest and farthest known galaxy yet. It was formed just 290 million years after the Big Bang.
Image: NASA
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