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| | | | | | | | | Finland viewed from space by ESA's MERIS satellite | |
1 January
1995: On 1 January 1995, Finland joined the European Space Agency as a full member.
Finland has not launched any national satellites, but has participated in a large number of international space missions beginning in the late 1980s with subsystems or instruments built in Finland. There are currently a number of space projects running at the Observatory of the University of Helsinki.
| | | Giuseppe Piazzi |
1801: On 1 January 1801, the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres, the first and largest asteroid.
The discovery of Ceres followed that of the planet Uranus, made in 1781 by Sir William Herschel. Piazzi's discovery confirmed the so-called 'Titius-Bode's law', which assumed the existence of a 'fifth planet' between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter. Later the German astronomer Johann Olbers discovered other 'small planets', which the astronomical community came to call 'asteroids'.
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