On what planet was a large rectangular outcrop that is composed mainly of sandstone first observed by an English astronomer born 1618?
Horrocks Block Horrocks Block ( ) is a large rectangular outcrop that is composed mainly of sandstone, lying on the north side of Venus Glacier, 2 nmi southwest of the Keystone Cliffs, on the east side of Alexander Island, Antarctica. It was mapped by the Directorate of Overseas Surveys from satellite imagery supplied by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, and was named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee from association with Venus Glacier after Jeremiah Horrocks, the British astronomer who predicted and first observed a transit of Venus, in 1639.
1566 Icarus 1566 Icarus ( ), provisional designation 1949 MA, is an extremely eccentric asteroid, approximately 1.4 kilometers in diameter. It is a near-Earth object of the Apollo group and the lowest numbered potentially hazardous asteroid. In 1968, it became the first asteroid ever observed by radar. Its orbit brings it closer to the Sun than Mercury and further out than the orbit of Mars, which also makes it a Mercury-, Venus-, and Mars-crosser. This stony asteroid and relatively fast rotator was discovered by German astronomer Walter Baade at the Palomar Observatory, California, on 27 June 1949. It was named after the mythological boy Icarus, who flew too close to the Sun.