Launches
ON RECORD20MISSIONS
19 of them reached orbit. The earliest was 1965, the most recent 2025.
ARCHIVE // DAY OF YEAR
October 16 in spaceflight
20 orbital launches flew on October 16, the earliest of them in 1965, and 19 reached orbit. Wikipedia records 2 spaceflight and astronomy events on October 16. Below are the pictures NASA published on October 16 in 5 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD2ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1736 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED5IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for October 16, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on October 16
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
2025
Young Suns of NGC 7129
Young suns still lie within dusty NGC 7129, some 3,000 light-years away toward the royal constellation Cepheus. While these stars are at a relatively tender age, only a few million years old, it is likely that our own Sun formed in a similar stellar nursery around five billion years ago. Notable in the sharp image are the lovely bluish dust clouds that reflect the youthful starlight. But the compact, deep red crescent shapes are also markers of energetic, young stellar objects. Known as Herbig-Haro objects, their shape and color are characteristic of glowing hydrogen gas shocked by jets streaming away from newborn stars. Paler, extended filaments of reddish emission mingling with the bluish clouds are caused by dust grains effectively converting the invisible ultraviolet starlight to visible red light through photoluminesence. Ultimately the natal gas and dust in the region will be dispersed, the stars drifting apart as the loose cluster orbits the center of the Galaxy. At the estimated distance of NGC 7129, this telescopic field of view spans nearly 40 light-years.
© Timothy Martin — used with the credit NASA publishes
2024
Colorful Aurora over New Zealand
Sometimes the night sky is full of surprises. Take the sky over Lindis Pass, South Island, New Zealand one-night last week. Instead of a typically calm night sky filled with constant stars, a busy and dynamic night sky appeared. Suddenly visible were pervasive red aurora, green picket-fence aurora, a red SAR arc, a STEVE, a meteor, and the Moon. These outshone the center of our Milky Way Galaxy and both of its two satellite galaxies: the LMC and SMC. All of these were captured together on 28 exposures in five minutes, from which this panorama was composed. Auroras lit up many skies last week, as a Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun unleashed a burst of particles toward our Earth that created colorful skies over latitudes usually too far from the Earth's poles to see them. More generally, night skies this month have other surprises, showing not only auroras -- but comets. Jigsaw Challenge: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
© Tristian McDonald — used with the credit NASA publishes
2023
Eclipse Rings
She knew everything but the question. She was well aware that there would be a complete annular eclipse of the Sun visible from their driving destination: Lake Abert in Oregon. She knew that the next ring-of-fire eclipse would occur in the USA only in 16 more years, making this a rare photographic opportunity. She was comfortable with the plan: that she and her boyfriend would appear in front of the eclipse in silhouette, sometimes alone, and sometimes together. She knew that the annular phase of this eclipse would last only a few minutes and she helped in the many hours of planning. She could see their friend who set up the camera about 400 meters away at the bottom of a ridge. What she didn't know was the question she would be asked. But she did know the answer: "yes". Album: Selected eclipse images sent in to APOD
© Jerry Zhang (left), Baolong Chen (photographer) & Amber Zhang (right) — used with the credit NASA publishes
2022
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
Across the center of this spiral galaxy is a bar. And at the center of this bar is smaller spiral. And at the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole. This all happens in the big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy cataloged as NGC 1300, a galaxy that lies some 70 million light-years away toward the constellation of the river Eridanus. This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the most detailed Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy. NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. How the giant bar formed, how it remains, and how it affects star formation remains an active topic of research.
NASA · public domain
2021
The Moona Lisa
Only natural colors of the Moon in planet Earth's sky appear in this creative visual presentation. Arranged as pixels in a framed image, the lunar disks were photographed at different times. Their varying hues are ultimately due to reflected sunlight affected by changing atmospheric conditions and the alignment geometry of Moon, Earth, and Sun. Here, the darkest lunar disks are the colors of earthshine. A description of earthshine, in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth's oceans illuminating the Moon's dark surface, was written over 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci. But stand farther back from your monitor or just shift your gaze to the smaller versions of the image. You might also see one of da Vinci's most famous works of art. Tonight: International Observe the Moon Night
© Gianni Sarcone — used with the credit NASA publishes
What happened on October 16
1793
War of the First Coalition: The two-day Battle of Wattignies concluded with Jean-Baptiste Jourdan leading French forces to victory over Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.
War of the First Coalition ↗
Every launch on October 16
20 launches
ONLINE
- 2025Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-52SpXSUCCESS
- 2025Long March 8A | SatNet LEO Group 12CASCSUCCESS
- 2021Atlas V 401 | LucyULASUCCESS
- 2016Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou-11CASCSUCCESS
- 2015Proton-M/Briz-M | Türksat 4BILSSUCCESS
- 2015Long March 3B/E | APStar-9CASCSUCCESS
- 2014Ariane 5 ECA | Intelsat-30 & ARSAT-1ASASUCCESS
- 2000Soyuz U | Progress M-43RFSASUCCESS
- 1997Long March 3B | Apstar 2RCASCSUCCESS
- 1990Soyuz U | Yantar-4K2 55CCCPSUCCESS
- 1985Soyuz U | Zenit-8 23CCCPSUCCESS
- 1980Soyuz U | Zenit-6U 27CCCPSUCCESS
- 1979Kosmos-3M | Parus 21CCCPSUCCESS
- 1975Delta 2914 | GOES 1USAFSUCCESS
- 1975Proton-K/D-1 | Luna-24aCCCPFAILURE
- 1973Kosmos 11K63 | DS-P1-Yu 65CCCPSUCCESS
- 1973Voskhod | Zenit-4M 57CCCPSUCCESS
- 1970Kosmos-3M | Strela-2M 2CCCPSUCCESS
- 1967Voskhod | Zenit-4 35CCCPSUCCESS
- 1965Voskhod | Zenit-4 13CCCPSUCCESS
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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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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