Curated playlist
Earth flybys
- PROCYONA 70-kilogram probe named PROCYON took the first complete image of Earth's outermost atmosphere layer.
- Cassini–HuygensCassini-Huygens dove into Saturn's atmosphere on purpose in 2017. It kept Earth microbes off possibly living moons.
- Galileo (spacecraft)NASA deliberately crashed the Galileo spacecraft into Jupiter in 2003. The goal was to protect the moon Europa.
- NEAR ShoemakerNEAR Shoemaker was meant to crash into an asteroid, but it landed in one piece. It kept transmitting on Eros.
- Chang'e 6Chang'e 6 became the first mission to bring home a piece of the Moon's far side.
- Stardust (spacecraft)Dust from Comet Wild 2 held minerals that form only near the Sun. Stardust brought the grains back to Earth.
- Rosetta (spacecraft)Philae, Rosetta's comet lander, bounced twice after its anchoring harpoons failed to fire.
- MESSENGERMESSENGER found evidence of water ice in permanently shadowed craters near Mercury's north pole.
- BepiColomboA thruster problem added eleven months to BepiColombo's trip to Mercury. ESA reported it in May 2024.
- Deep Impact (spacecraft)Deep Impact fired a copper-tipped probe into comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005.