On July 11, 1979, the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth as it burned up in the atmosphere, showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia. Discover more space history 👉 https://trib.al/p1aUtJJ The last crew left the space station in 1974. Over time, it began to deorbit, slowly sinking closer and closer to Earth. Skylab actually fell back to Earth a little sooner than NASA anticipated. Strong solar storms were blamed for this premature plunge, b

On November 13, 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. Discover more space history 👉 https://trib.al/17APNj5 At the time, scientists didn't know much about the Red Planet. NASA had several flybys before Mariner 9. Those flybys showed that Mars had a cratered surface, so some scientists thought that Mars looked just like the moon. Then Mariner 9 blew their minds. When Mariner 9 got to Mars, it arrived in the middle of a dust storm. It saw some tall structures sticking through