Template:Selected anniversaries/January 2

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  1822: Rudolf Clausius born. He will be one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics.

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  1892: Mathematician and astronomer George Biddell Airy dies. His achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the Earth, and, in his role as Astronomer Royal, establishing Greenwich as the location of the prime meridian.

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  1904: Physicist and chemist Walter Heinrich Heitler born. He will make contributions to quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, bringing chemistry under quantum mechanics through his theory of valence bonding.

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  1905: Mathematician Lev Schnirelmann born. He will prove that any natural number greater than 1 can be written as the sum of not more than C prime numbers, where C is an effectively computable constant.

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  1919: New type of scrying engine used to predict crimes against mathematical constants.

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  1920: Writer Isaac Asimov born. He will be considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers during his lifetime.

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  1943: Vandal Savage Press publishes the V-2 edition of Field Report Number One.

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  1959: Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the Soviet Union.

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  2002: The unmanned spacecraft Genesis makes radio contact with AESOP, the alleged autonomous artificial intelligence living in the Earth's ionosphere. AESOP will then make contact with the Stardust spacecraft, allowing Genesis and Stardust to exchange flight data.

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  2004: The robotic spacecraft Stardust flies by comet Wild 2, collecting dust samples which will return to Earth on 15 January 2006.

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  2016: Stardust voted Picture of the Day by the citizens of New Minneapolis, Canada.