On July 11, 1979, the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth as it burned up in the atmosphere, showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia. The last crew left the space station in 1974. Over time, it began to deorbit, slowly sinking closer and closer to Earth. Skylab actually fell back to Earth a little sooner than NASA anticipated. Strong solar storms were blamed for this premature plunge, because solar activity had warmed up Earth's atmosphere.

On Sept. 20, 1970, the Soviet Union's Luna 16 moon probe landed on the moon to retrieve a soil sample. Four days later, it became the first robotic spacecraft to return a sample of lunar soil to Earth. Luna 16 was the first robotic spacecraft to succeed in landing on the moon, scooping up a soil sample and returning it to Earth. Before Luna 16, the Soviet space program had tried and failed five times to return a sample from the moon. Overall, this was the third lunar sample brought to Earth. NAS