Launches
ON RECORD17MISSIONS
14 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1957, the most recent 2024.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
October 4 in spaceflight
17 orbital launches flew on October 4, the earliest of them in 1957, and 14 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 3 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 4. Below are the pictures NASA published on October 4 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD3ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1693 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED5IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for October 4, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on October 4
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
2025
The Rotating Moon
No one on Earth sees the Moon rotate like this. That's because the Moon is tidally locked in synchronous rotation, showing only one side to denizens of our fair planet. Still, given modern digital technology, combined with many detailed images returned by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a high resolution virtual Moon rotation movie can be composed. In fact, the featured time-lapse video starts with a view of the familiar lunar nearside and quickly finds the Mare Orientale, a large crater with a dark center that is difficult to see from the Earth, rotating into view just below the equator. In a complete lunar rotation condensed into 24 seconds, the video clearly shows that the Earth-facing nearside of the Moon contains an abundance of dark lunar maria, while the lunar farside is dominated by bright lunar highlands. Of course, you can just join other moon-watchers under hopefully clear skies tonight. Check out the sunlit portion of the lunar nearside on International Observe the Moon Night.
NASA · public domain
2024
Comet at Moonrise
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is growing brighter in planet Earth's sky. Fondly known as comet A3, this new visitor to the inner Solar System is traveling from the distant Oort cloud. The comet reached perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, on September 27 and will reach perigee, its closest to our fair planet, on October 12, by then becoming an evening sky apparition. But comet A3 was an early morning riser on September 30 when this image was made. Its bright coma and already long tail share a pre-dawn skyscape from Praia Grande, Santa Catarina in southern Brazil with the waning crescent Moon just peeking above the eastern horizon. While the behaviour of comets is notoriously unpredictable, Tsuchinshan–ATLAS could become a comet visually rivaling C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). Comet NEOWISE wowed skygazers in the summer of 2020. Growing Gallery: Comet Tsuchinsan-ATLAS in 2024
© Gabriel Zaparolli — used with the credit NASA publishes
2023
IC 2118: The Witch Head Nebula
Does this nebula look like the head of a witch? The nebula is known popularly as the Witch Head Nebula because, it is said, the nebula's shape resembles a Halloween-style caricature of a witch's head. Exactly how, though, can be a topic of imaginative speculation. What is clear is that IC 2118 is about 50 light-years across and made of gas and dust that points to -- because it has been partly eroded by -- the nearby star Rigel. One of the brighter stars in the constellation Orion, Rigel lies below the bottom of the featured image. The blue color of the Witch Head Nebula and is caused not only by Rigel's intense blue starlight but because the dust grains scatter blue light more efficiently than red. The same physical process causes Earth's daytime sky to appear blue, although the scatterers in planet Earth's atmosphere are molecules of nitrogen and oxygen.
© Abdullah Alharbi — used with the credit NASA publishes
2022
Star-Forming Eagle Nebula without Stars
The whole thing looks like an eagle. A closer look at the Eagle Nebula's center, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed. In this cavity tall pillars and round globules of dark dust and cold molecular gas remain where stars are still forming. Paradoxically, it is perhaps easier to appreciate this impressive factory of star formation by seeing it without its stars -- which have been digitally removed in the featured image. The Eagle emission nebula, tagged M16, lies about 6500 light years away, spans about 20 light-years, and is visible with binoculars toward the constellation of the Serpent (Serpens). Creating this picture involved over 22 hours of imaging and combining colors emitted specifically by hydrogen (red), and oxygen (blue).
© Yannick Akar — used with the credit NASA publishes
2021
NGC 4676: When Mice Collide
These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as the "Mice" because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other. The long tails are created by the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy. Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion -- over hundreds of millions of years. NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice's Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. The featured picture was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002. These galactic mice will probably collide again and again over the next billion years so that, instead of continuing to pull each other apart, they coalesce to form a single galaxy. Follow APOD in English on: Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter
NASA · public domain
What happened on October 4
Every launch on October 4
17 launches
ONLINE
- 2024Vulcan VC2S | Certification Flight 2ULASUCCESS
- 2022Atlas V 531 | SES-20 & SES-21ULASUCCESS
- 2019Long March 4C | Gaofen-10RCASCSUCCESS
- 2012Delta IV M+(4,2) | GPS IIF-3 (USA-239)ULASUCCESS
- 1991Soyuz-U-PVB | Foton 7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1990Zenit-2 | Tselina-2 8CCCPFAILURE
- 1984Molniya-M | US-K 38CCCPSUCCESS
- 1978Kosmos-3M | Strela-1M 153-160CCCPSUCCESS
- 1976Soyuz U | Zenit-4MKT 3CCCPFAILURE
- 1972Voskhod | Zenit-4M 43CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Molniya-M | Luna-7CCCPSUCCESS
- 1964Thor Delta C | Explorer 21USAFSUCCESS
- 1960Thor DM-21 Ablestar | Courier 1BUSAFSUCCESS
- 1960Scout X-1 | ST-2NASASUCCESS
- 1959Little Joe | LJ-6NASAPARTIAL
- 1959Vostok-L 8K72 | Luna-3CCCPSUCCESS
- 1957Sputnik 8K74PS | Sputnik 1CCCPSUCCESS
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. This archive is still being mirrored, so some days are incomplete. 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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General-audience astronomy and spaceflight — none of it a textbook.
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Cosmos — Carl Sagan
Still the best single argument for why any of this matters, and it leaves the arithmetic in. For a reader who wants the science, not just the awe.
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Pale Blue Dot — Carl Sagan
The case for leaving Earth, written by someone unsentimental about how hard that is. Suits readers who want the argument rather than the poster.
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Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir
Hard-SF problem solving in The Martian's key — for anyone who liked the engineering more than the peril. The only novel on this list.
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