On this day · archive
A lander leaves for the Martian north
On August 4, 2007, NASA launched the Phoenix Mars lander. Its destination was the planet’s northern plains, where a stationary laboratory would dig into the soil and study a cold world close at hand.
8
events in todayish file
2007
NASA launches the Phoenix lander toward Mars.
The spacecraft left Earth carrying a compact laboratory built to work from one place on the Martian surface.
NASA launched the Phoenix Mars lander on August 4, 2007. Unlike a rover, Phoenix was designed to stay put after arrival and investigate the ground within reach of its robotic arm.
Space exploration often celebrates distance, but a lander’s science is intimate. It examines soil, weather, and the immediate horizon until one small site becomes evidence for a planet.
The launch gave August 4 a quieter counterpoint in the archive: a machine leaving Earth to study cold Martian ground with deliberate attention.
The full record
8 entries from the day’s archive, filed year by year with a note on what each one leaves behind.
Beirut Port explosion: At least 220 people are killed and over 5,000 are wounded when 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate explodes in Beirut, Lebanon.
The port blast devastated Beirut, leaving mass casualties and damage across the capital.
Disaster
Nine people are killed and 26 injured in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio. This comes only 13 hours after another mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, where 23 people were killed.
The Dayton attack followed the El Paso shooting by only thirteen hours, deepening a weekend of national grief.
Violence
Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expel the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from the Iraq–Syria border, concluding the second phase of the Deir ez-Zor campaign.
The campaign’s second phase ended with ISIL expelled from the Iraq–Syria border area.
Conflict
NASA's Phoenix Mars lander is launched.
Phoenix began the journey that would place a stationary laboratory on Mars.
Space
The Ariane 3 rocket is launched for the first time, carrying the Eutelsat I F-2 and Télécom 1A satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit.
The first Ariane 3 flight carried European communications satellites toward geosynchronous orbit.
Space
The Supreme Court of Japan is established.
Japan’s postwar constitution gained its highest judicial institution.
Law
Prime Minister of Greece Ioannis Metaxas suspends parliament and the Constitution and establishes the 4th of August Regime.
The suspension replaced parliamentary government with an authoritarian regime.
Politics
Diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Soviet Union are established.
Formal ties opened a state-to-state channel between Mexico and the Soviet Union.
Diplomacy