On this day in June

Clair Patterson is born Born

The geochemist who used lead from meteorites to measure the age of the Earth, 4.55 billion years, in 1956.

Mars Express Mission

Mars Express launched on a Soyuz rocket.

2018 LA: a piece of Vesta over Botswana Fall

A small asteroid is spotted hours before it explodes over Botswana. Searchers find meteorites in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and they turn out to be howardites, probably from Vesta.

Chang'e 6 Mission

Landed in Apollo crater on the far side (Beijing time).

Comet Thatcher Comets and showers

Comet Thatcher passed closest to the Sun; it will not return until about 2280.

Chang'e 6 Mission

The ascent stage lifted off from the far side.

The Abee meteorite falls in Canada Fall

A 107-kilogram enstatite chondrite that fell on a Canadian wheat field in 1952 – a rare sample of rock formed with almost no oxygen.

Opportunity Mission

Last contact, during a planet-wide dust storm.

Comet Pons–Winnecke Comets and showers

Jean-Louis Pons discovered the comet now called Pons–Winnecke.

Luis Alvarez is born Born

The Nobel prize-winning physicist who, with his son Walter, proposed in 1980 that an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs.

Hayabusa returns home Mission

Despite years of breakdowns, Hayabusa's capsule lands in Australia with tiny grains from Itokawa. They match LL chondrites, proving that these common meteorites come from S-type asteroids.

Hayabusa · Junichiro Kawaguchi

Juvinas falls in France Fall

A stone of about 90 kilograms falls near Juvinas in the Ardèche. It is a eucrite, a basalt from the crust of Vesta, and one of the largest of its kind ever seen to fall.

In the timeline

Stones shower down near Siena Fall

Dozens of stones fall near Siena in Tuscany, watched by many people including English visitors. Coming less than a day after an eruption of Vesuvius, the fall is at first blamed on the volcano, even though Siena lies about 320 kilometres away.

Edward King

Denison Olmsted is born Born

The Yale professor who studied the great Leonid meteor storm of 1833 and showed that meteors come from space.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS Mission

LRO and LCROSS launched together on an Atlas V rocket.

Edward Anders is born Born

The Chicago cosmochemist whose table of Solar System element abundances became a standard, and whose team first found stardust older than the Sun in meteorites.

The Ozerki meteorite falls in Russia Fall

A bright fireball over Russia in June 2018 that delivered fresh stones to villagers and scientists within days.

Carolyn Shoemaker is born Born

The astronomer who began searching the sky in her fifties and discovered more comets than almost anyone, including the one that hit Jupiter.

Chang'e 6 Mission

The capsule landed in Inner Mongolia with 1,935.3 g of far-side samples.

The Tatahouine meteorite falls in Tunisia Fall

A meteorite that shattered into green crystals in the Tunisian desert in 1931 – a fragment from deep inside the asteroid Vesta.

NEAR Shoemaker Mission

Flew past the dark asteroid 253 Mathilde.

Hayabusa2 reaches Ryugu Mission

Japan's Hayabusa2 arrives at the carbon-rich asteroid Ryugu, which turns out to be a spinning-top-shaped pile of rubble.

Hayabusa2

Nakhla falls in Egypt Fall

About 40 stones fall near El Nakhla el Baharia, east of Alexandria. Seventy years later they were recognised as rocks from Mars, and Nakhla gave its name to the nakhlites.

In the timeline

The Tunguska explosion Fall

A huge blast over the Siberian forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river flattens about 2,000 square kilometres of trees. It was an asteroid or comet fragment exploding in the air, and no crater was made.

In the timeline · Leonid Kulik