Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the
moon, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with
astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr.; Richard F. Gordon, Jr.; and
Alan L. Bean aboard. President Richard Nixon viewed the
liftoff from Pad A at Cape Canaveral, the first president to 
attend the liftoff of a manned space flight.

Thirty-six seconds after takeoff, lightning struck the ascending
Saturn 5 launch rocket, which tripped the circuit breakers in the command module and caused a power failure. Fortunately, the
launching rocket continued up normally, and within a few
minutes power was restored in the spacecraft.

December 12, 1969

New images released this week from NASA’s James Webb
Space Telescope are revealing Neptune, and the planet’s
hard-to-detect rings, in a fresh light.

Johann Gottfried Galle
(9 June 1812 – 10 July 1910)

(Fox News) – NASA on Thursday shared an image taken by the
James Webb Telescope showing the first-ever direct image of
a planet outside our solar system. 

NASA says the exoplanet, HIP 65426 b, is a gas giant, meaning
it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable. The image
can be seen through different bands of infrared light.

Sasha Hinkley, associate professor of physics and astronomy
at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, who led the observations, called the images a "transformative moment, not
only for Webb but also for astronomy generally." 

The James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December
2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, and
arrived at the Sun–Earth L₂ Lagrange point in January 2022.

The telescope is the successor of the Hubble as NASA’s flagship
mission in astrophysics.

 
SANDY KOZEL

Charles Augustus Lindbergh
(February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974)

CAMILLE BOHANNON

Robert Plant is best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the
English rock band Led Zeppelin for all of its existence from 1968
until 1980, when the band broke up following the death of John
Bonham, the band’s drummer. He was inducted with the band
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him number 15 on their
list of the 100 best singers of all time. In 2011, Rolling Stone
readers ranked Plant the greatest of all lead singers. In 2006,
Hit Parader magazine named Plant the "Greatest Metal Vocalist
of All Time".           

In 2009, Plant was voted "the greatest voice in rock" in a poll
conducted by Planet Rock. Plant is 74 years old today.