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20061776 Club

IAU names Pluto's two new moons Nix and Hydra

The designations P1 and P2, spotted by Hubble just last year, become names drawn from underworld mythology and chosen with a nod to the New Horizons mission whose initials they share.

By June 2006, Pluto was already losing its grip on planetary status — the IAU vote that would demote it to "dwarf planet" was just weeks away. Against that backdrop, the same IAU convened on June 21 to do something more generous: officially name the two small moons that Max Mutchler and Andrew Steffl had spotted with the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2005. "P1" became Nix, and "P2" became Hydra — both drawn from the mythology of the underworld, and both chosen with a quiet nod to the New Horizons mission whose initials they share…

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More from June 21
1768

Otis stands before the General Court and charges King and Parliament with tyranny

The Boston lawyer who called taxation without representation unlawful delivers his sharpest attack yet; word is already moving toward London.
1788

New Hampshire ratifies; the Constitution crosses the nine-state threshold

Eight states had approved it and it meant nothing; the Granite State's vote today makes the Philadelphia document the law of a real nation.
1942

Japanese submarine shells Fort Stevens; Doney orders blackout, holds his guns

Commander Tagami surfaces I-25 at the Columbia River mouth after dark, fires seventeen rounds, and slips away undamaged, leaving cut telephone lines on the Oregon coast.
20041776 Club
SpaceShipOne, built by Burt Rutan for roughly $25 million of Paul Allen's money, breaks a 43-year government monopoly on crewed spaceflight.
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More from Modern America
2020

Biden accepts the nomination alone in a Delaware ballroom, no crowd, no roar

A pandemic convention ends with the nominee speaking to a camera instead of a stadium.
1994

Thirty-three years after his death, the Air Force finally makes Eugene Bullard an officer

France called him a hero and gave him a pilot's license in 1917; his own country waited until 1994 to make it official.
2012

Voyager 1 leaves the Sun's bubble; no craft has gone farther

Thirty-five years after launch, its instruments detect the plasma signature of true interstellar space.
2005

Katrina comes ashore at Buras; hours later, New Orleans is drowning

Fifty-three levee and floodwall breaches put 80 percent of the city underwater by nightfall.
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