EXCITING DAY IN SPACE: EUROPEANS LAUNCH DEEP SPACE OBSERVATORIES, NASA SPIFFS UP HUBBLE

It has been an exciting day for nerds like me who could sit around and watch the Science Channel for weeks on end.

First, the European Space Agency successfully launched two of the most ambitious missions ever attempted on Thursday to explore deep space secrets.

While that was going on, NASA astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis completed the first of five very risky spacewalks — this one to install a new camera in the Hubble Space Telescope.

The ESA launch of the unmanned observatories Herschel and Planck will allow astronomers to explore some of the darkest, coldest, and oldest parts of the universe.

Herschel is a far infrared space telescope and Planck is a cosmic background mapper. I have no idea what either of those mean, but it sounds pretty exciting.

Meanwhile, across the sky, a pair of NASA astronauts fitted Hubble with a brand new camera, giving the telescope the ability to peer even deeper into space.

The camera, which is the size of a piano, replaced a 15-year-old Wide Field Camera. The space walk marked the first time in seven years that NASA has made repairs to Hubble.