Today in Science (0102)

Events

1860 - The discovery of the planet Vulcan is announced at a meeting of the Académie des Sciences

1959 - Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched

2004 - Stardust successfully flies past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that it will return to Earth two years later.

Deaths

1893 - John Obadiah Westwood, British entomologist

1917 - Edward Burnett Tylor, English anthropologist

2005 - Maclyn McCarty, American geneticist