On This Day in Tech History

In 2013, the Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping gave a lecture from space to students back on Earth. The lecture was part of a mission called Shenzhou-10, which was China's fifth manned spaceflight. During the lecture, Wang Yaping demonstrated physics experiments in microgravity, explaining scientific principles to the students through a live video feed. The lecture was broadcasted on television and online, making it accessible to millions of people in China and around the world. This was a significant moment in China's space program, as it demonstrated the country's growing capabilities in space exploration and its commitment to promoting science education.

In 1990, David H. Levy discovered an asteroid which he named Eureka. The asteroid, also known as "5261 Eureka," closely trails Mars at just 0.3 astronomical units away. It is categorized as an Amor asteroid, which means it has a perihelion distance (closest point to the sun) that is greater than that of Earth's orbit. Eureka has an estimated diameter of around 2.5 kilometers and is believed to be a relatively young asteroid, with an age of around 1 billion years. Its orbit is irregular, and it takes about 1.2 Earth years to complete one orbit around the sun. Eureka's discovery has contributed to our understanding of the composition and behavior of asteroids in our solar system.

On June 20, 1950, the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in the United States dedicated the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC) machine. The SEAC was a revolutionary invention for its time, being the first operational stored-program electronic computer in the country. The SEAC machine was developed under the leadership of computer pioneer Samuel N. Alexander and his team at NBS. It was designed to perform scientific and engineering calculations, as well as to aid in research and development in various fields. The SEAC had a memory capacity of 512 31-bit words and could perform up to 1,000 additions or subtractions per second. Its storage system was made of Williams-Kilburn tubes, which were among the earliest forms of random access memory.