On this day in April

Comet Hale–Bopp Comets and showers

Comet Hale–Bopp passed closest to the Sun.

Comet Tempel 1 Comets and showers

Wilhelm Tempel discovered the comet now known as Tempel 1.

Comet Thatcher Comets and showers

A. E. Thatcher discovered the comet behind the Lyrid meteors.

The Kapoeta meteorite falls in South Sudan Fall

A howardite that fell in South Sudan in 1942 – a piece of the battered surface of the asteroid Vesta.

Hayabusa2 Mission

Made the first artificial crater on an asteroid.

Neuschwanstein: a fall traced by cameras Fall

The European Fireball Network records a fireball over Bavaria. Pavel Spurný's team calculates the fall area, and three meteorites are found near Neuschwanstein Castle.

Pavel Spurný

Příbram: the first meteorite with a known orbit Fall

Cameras at two Czech observatories photograph a fireball. Zdeněk Ceplecha calculates its path and orbit, and stones are found where predicted, the first meteorite traced back to its orbit around the Sun.

Zdeněk Ceplecha

Apollo 16 Mission

Apollo 16 launched.

Brian Mason is born Born

The Smithsonian curator who classified thousands of Antarctic meteorites and spotted that the first lunar meteorite looked like Apollo highland rock.

Gustav Tschermak is born Born

The Vienna mineralogist who named maskelynite, the shocked glass in the Shergotty meteorite, and helped classify meteorites.

Lucy Mission

Flew past the asteroid Donaldjohnson.

Jean-Baptiste Biot is born Born

The young physicist whose report on the 1803 fall at L'Aigle convinced the scientific world that meteorites come from the sky.

Apollo 16 Mission

Young and Duke landed in the Descartes highlands.

Comet Pons–Brooks Comets and showers

Comet Pons–Brooks passed closest to the Sun.

Sutter's Mill: radar finds a fall Fall

A daytime fireball over California drops carbon-rich stones near Sutter's Mill, where the 1848 gold rush began. Weather radar helps searchers find the pieces quickly.

In the timeline · Peter Jenniskens

L'Aigle: the fall that convinced science Fall

Thousands of stones fall around L'Aigle in Normandy. Jean-Baptiste Biot interviews witnesses and maps the fall area, and his report persuades the scientific world that stones really do fall from the sky.

In the timeline · Jean-Baptiste Biot

Apollo 16 Mission

The crew splashed down with 95.7 kg of samples.

Eugene Shoemaker is born Born

The founder of planetary geology, who proved Meteor Crater was an impact and co-discovered the comet that hit Jupiter.

Forest Ray Moulton is born Born

The astronomer whose calculation in 1929 showed that the meteorite that made Meteor Crater must have been largely vaporised.

Harold Urey is born Born

The Nobel prize-winning chemist who helped found cosmochemistry, the study of the chemistry of the Solar System.