Caroline Herschel discovers her first comet, Comet C/1786 P1 (Herschel).
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797 years ago, in 1133:
King Henry's Eclipse occurs over England, with totality lasting for over four minutes, and coinciding with the death of King Henry I.
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2361 years ago, in -431:
The oldest European record of a verifiable solar eclipse (annular) is given by the Greek historian Thucydides.
334 years ago, in 1596:
David Fabricius discovers the first known periodic variable star, Mira, in the constellation of Cetus.
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157 years ago, in 1773:
Charles Messier first observes NGC 205, also known in later years as M110.
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53 years ago, in 1877:
Asaph Hall, Sr., an American astronomer, discovers the first of Mars' moons, Deimos.
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32 years ago, in 1898:
433 Eros, the first discovered and second-largest near-Earth asteroid, is discovered by the German astronomer Carl Gustav Witt at the Berlin Urania Observatory.
This year:
A meteor explodes in an air burst over the Curuca River area in Brazil.
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133 years ago, in 1797:
Caroline Herschel and Eugene Bouvard independently discover Comet C/1797 P1 (Bouvard-Herschel).
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62 years ago, in 1868:
French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen discovers an unknown element, now known as helium, in the spectrum of the sun during a total eclipse.
53 years ago, in 1877:
Asaph Hall, Sr., an American astronomer, discovers the second of Mars' moons, Phobos.
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45 years ago, in 1885:
Ernst Hartwig, at the Dorpat Observatory in Estonia, discovers supernova SN 1885A in Andromeda, the first Type Ia detected outside our galaxy.
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65 years ago, in 1865:
The Shergotty meteorite, the first example of the shergottite Mars meteorite family, falls to Earth in Shergotty (now Sherghati) in the Gaya district, India.
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157 years ago, in 1773:
Caroline Herschel independently discovers NGC 205, also known in later years as M110.
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141 years ago, in 1789:
William Herschel discovers a moon of Saturn, Enceladus.