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April 13 in spaceflight

16 orbital launches flew on April 13, the earliest of them in 1959, and 13 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on April 13. Below are the pictures NASA published on April 13 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.

Launches

ON RECORD

16MISSIONS

13 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1959, the most recent 2025.

Recorded events

IN THE RECORD

4ENTRIES

Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1960 onward.

Pictures from this date

PUBLISHED

6IMAGES

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for April 13, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.

Published on April 13

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.

NGC 602 and Beyond

2026

NGC 602 and Beyond

The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond. Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the featured picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in this sharp multi-colored view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602. Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (after 1995)

NASA · public domain

An Unusual Hole in Mars

2025

An Unusual Hole in Mars

What created this unusual hole in Mars? Actually, there are numerous holes pictured in this Swiss cheese-like landscape, with all-but-one of them showing a dusty, dark, Martian terrain beneath evaporating, light, carbon dioxide ice. The most unusual hole is on the upper right, spans about 100 meters, and seems to punch through to a lower level. Why this hole exists and why it is surrounded by a circular crater remains a topic of speculation, although a leading hypothesis is that it was created by a meteor impact. Holes such as this are of particular interest because they might be portals to lower levels that extend into expansive underground caves. If so, these naturally occurring tunnels are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them relatively good candidates to contain Martian life. These pits are therefore also prime targets for possible future spacecraft, robots, and even human interplanetary explorers.

NASA · public domain

Palm Tree Partial Eclipse

2024

Palm Tree Partial Eclipse

Only those along the narrow track of the Moon's shadow on April 8 saw a total solar eclipse. But most of North America still saw a partial eclipse of the Sun. From Clearwater, Florida, USA this single snapshot captured multiple images of that more widely viewed celestial event without observing the Sun directly. In the shade of a palm tree, criss-crossing fronds are projecting recognizable eclipse images on the ground, pinhole camera style. In Clearwater the maximum eclipse phase was about 53 percent. Solar Eclipse Imagery: Notable Submissions to APOD

© Lori Haffelt — used with the credit NASA publishes

NGC 2419: Intergalactic Wanderer

2023

NGC 2419: Intergalactic Wanderer

Stars of the globular cluster NGC 2419 are packed into this Hubble Space Telescope field of view toward the mostly stealthy constellation Lynx. The two brighter spiky stars near the edge of the frame are within our own galaxy. NGC 2419 itself is remote though, some 300,000 light-years away. In comparison, the Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, is only about 160,000 light-years distant. Roughly similar to other large globular star clusters like Omega Centauri, NGC 2419 is intrinsically bright, but appears faint because it is so far away. Its extreme distance makes it difficult to study and compare its properties with other globular clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Sometimes called "the Intergalactic Wanderer", NGC 2419 really does seem to have come from beyond the Milky Way. Measurements of the cluster's motion through space suggest it once belonged to the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy, another small satellite galaxy being disrupted by repeated encounters with the much larger Milky Way.

NASA · public domain

Milky Way over Devils Tower

2022

Milky Way over Devils Tower

What created Devils Tower? The origin of this extraordinary rock monolith in Wyoming, USA is still debated, with a leading hypothesis holding that it is a hardened lava plume that never reached the surface to become a volcano. In this theory, the lighter rock that once surrounded the dense volcanic neck has now eroded away, leaving the dramatic tower. Known by Native Americans by names including Bear's Lodge and Great Gray Horn, the dense rock includes the longest hexagonal columns known, some over 180-meters tall. High above, the central band of the Milky Way galaxy arches across the sky. Many notable sky objects are visible, including dark strands of the Pipe Nebula and the reddish Lagoon Nebula to the tower's right. Green grass and trees line the foreground, while clouds appear near the horizon to the tower's left. Unlike many other international landmarks, mountaineers are permitted to climb Devils Tower. Birthday Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)

© MaryBeth Kiczenski — used with the credit NASA publishes

Confirmed Muon Wobble Remains Unexplained

2021

Confirmed Muon Wobble Remains Unexplained

How fast do elementary particles wobble? A surprising answer to this seemingly inconsequential question came out of Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, USA in 2001, and indicated that the Standard Model of Particle Physics, adopted widely in physics, is incomplete. Specifically, the muon, a particle with similarities to a heavy electron, has had its relatively large wobble under scrutiny in a series of experiments known as g-2 (gee-minus-two). The Brookhaven result galvanized other experimental groups around the world to confirm it, and pressured theorists to better understand it. Reporting in last week, the most sensitive muon wobble experiment yet, conducted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois and pictured here, agreed with the Brookhaven result. The unexpected wobble rate may indicate that an ever-present sea of virtual particles includes types not currently known. Alternatively, it may indicate that flaws exist in difficult theoretical prediction calculations. Future runs at Fermilab's g-2 experiment will further increase precision and, possibly, the statistical difference between the universe we measure and the universe we understand.

NASA · public domain

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What happened on April 13

  2. 1970

    At 10:08 PM EST an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the Apollo command and service module (codenamed "Odyssey") while en route to the Moon.

    Oxygen ↗

  3. 1996

    An Israel Defense Forces helicopter fired rockets at an ambulance, killing two women and four children in Mansouri, Lebanon.

    Israel Defense Forces ↗

  4. 1996

    Two women and four children are killed after an Israeli helicopter fires rockets at an ambulance in Mansouri, Lebanon.

    Mansouri attack ↗

Every launch on April 13

16 launches

ONLINE
  1. 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 12-17SpXSUCCESS
  2. 2024Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-49SpXSUCCESS
  3. 2007Long March 3A | Beidou DW 1CASCSUCCESS
  4. 1994Atlas I | GOES 8GDSUCCESS
  5. 1991Delta II | ASC 2USAFSUCCESS
  6. 1990Delta 6925-8 | Palapa B2RUSAFSUCCESS
  7. 1990Soyuz U | Yantar-4KS1 14CCCPSUCCESS
  8. 1985Zenit-2 | GVM Tselina-2CCCPFAILURE
  9. 1976Tsiklon-2 | IS-A 2CCCPSUCCESS
  10. 1975Atlas F | P72-2USAFFAILURE
  11. 1974Delta 2914 | Westar 1USAFSUCCESS
  12. 1969Atlas SLV-3A Agena D | Canyon 2USAFSUCCESS
  13. 1967Lambda 4S | Ohsumi 3ISASFAILURE
  14. 1963Kosmos-2I 63S1 | Omega 1CCCPSUCCESS
  15. 1960Thor DM-21 Ablestar | Transit 1BUSAFSUCCESS
  16. 1959Thor Agena A | Discoverer 2USAFSUCCESS

Sources and licences

Event text and thumbnails come from Wikipedia and are used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Images are drawn only from Wikimedia Commons, which does not accept non-free content — each thumbnail links to its file page, where its licence and author are recorded.

Launch records are from The Space Devs’ Launch Library 2. Pictures are NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day; NASA imagery is generally not subject to copyright, but individual APOD entries are frequently the property of the photographer, and each caption says which applies.

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