One of the major scientific expansions was in the year 2021. Astronomers have been able to peer into the universe like never before thanks to a variety of exploratory missions.
The Earth has been turned into a giant telescope to view jets from a black hole. Scientists have found new moons and comets previously undetected. The sun is a main attraction for research as it awakens from its recent slumber.
We looked at the 10 biggest space stories of the year.
1. The discovery of a comet.
Two researchers discovered a comet.
Pedro Bernardinelli, a graduate student, was looking through the data to find objects that live beyond Neptune's path when he noticed an object that was far away from the sun. Gary Bernstein was asked by his client to look at something.
They had found a comet that may be 10 times larger and 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet.
Lucy walked on the Earth approximately 3 million years ago and this comet has not swung around the sun since.
The comet they found was named after them on June 23, 2021.
Astronomers will only have to wait a decade to see this comet approach the sun. The Oort Cloud is a region of the solar system where comets originate. It can take thousands of years for comets to complete a trip around the sun.
When Bernardinelli-Bernstein makes its closest approach to Earth in 2031, scientists will be able to get a more accurate reading of the comet's size and composition.
2. An astronomer discovers a new moon.
NASA's Pioneer 11 was the first to view Jupiter. The image is from NASA Ames.
There is a moon around the largest planet in the solar system.
Jupiter attracts many objects into its vicinity because it is a giant. Earth has one major moon, Mars has two, but Jupiter has at least 79 moons, and there may be many more.
The latest discovery was made by amateur astronomer Kai Ly, who found evidence of a Jovian moon in a data set from 2003 that had been collected by researchers using the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea. The moon was bound to Jupiter's gravity using data from another telescope.
The Carme group of Jovian moons has a new moon called EJc0061. They are in the opposite direction of Jupiter's rotation.
3. This decade, NASA will return to Venus.
Scientists can't peer through the thick atmosphere to see Venus. The image is from NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Mars is a popular target for space agencies, but Earth's other neighbor has been getting more attention recently.
In 2020, researchers announced that they had found traces of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere. The news reawakened interest in the planet, as it is a possible biosignature gas.
NASA will launch two missions to Venus by the year 2030. One mission will descend through the planet's atmosphere to learn about how it has changed over time. The other mission will attempt to map the planet's terrain in a way never before done.
NASA has not launched a dedicated mission to Venus since 1989.
The second planet from the sun is also a challenging place to study, and the interest in Martian exploration may be one reason why Venus has been neglected in recent decades. The planet Venus has a greenhouse effect that took hold of it around 700 million years ago, and now it's hot enough to melt lead.
4. The sun is shining again.
An artist's depiction of the sun. The image is from NASA.
The sun was in a quiet phase in its cycle, but is now leaving it.
The sun's surface has been active in recent years, but it has not had much activity in recent years. A series of solar flares triggered a large storm on our planet.
A coronal mass ejection is an eruption. The solar system has a billion-ton cloud of solar material with magnetic fields, and when this bubble pops, it blasts a stream of energetic particles out into the solar system. If this material moves in the direction of Earth, it will cause problems with our planet's magnetic field. These can include ethereal displays of the Auroras near Earth's poles, but can also include satellite disruptions and energy losses.
5. The James Webb Space Telescope is in space.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched into space in December of 2021. The image is from NASA TV.
The world's next major telescope was successfully launched on Christmas Day in 2021.
More than three decades in the making, NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency are collaborating on a $10 billion space telescope. The vision for this particular spacecraft began before the Hubble Space Telescope had even launched.
Hubble is a few hundred miles from Earth's surface, while the JWST is about a million miles away. The telescope began its journey towards this spot on December 25, 2021. Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana was the site of the Ariane 5 rocket's launch.
The telescope will help answer questions about the evolution of the universe and provide a deeper understanding of the objects found in our own solar system.
6. The black hole jet image was taken by the event horizon telescope.
The black hole at the center of the galaxy has a jet emerging from it. The image is from Nature Astronomy.
In July 2021, the novel project behind the world's first photo of a black hole published an image of a powerful jet blasting off from one of these super massive objects.
The event horizon telescope is a global collaboration of eight observatories that work together to create one Earth-sized telescope. The result is a resolution that is 16 times sharper and an image that is 10 times more accurate than before.
Scientists used EHT's incredible abilities to observe a powerful jet being ejected by the black hole at the center of the Centaurus A galaxy, one of the brighter objects in the night sky. 55 million suns make up the mass of the galaxy's black hole.
7. Scientists spot a black hole.
An artist's depiction of a black hole and a red giant star. Lauren Fanfer created an illustration of Ohio State.
The closest black hole to Earth is called "The Unicorn", which is just 1,500 light-years away.
Scientists were able to find a black hole when they noticed strange behavior from its companion star. The researchers observed that the light was shifting in intensity and that another object was tugging on the star.
The black hole is very light at just three solar mass. The black hole's name was inspired by its location in the constellation Monoceros and its rarity.
8. Earth's second'moon' is going into space.
The image is from NASA/JPL-Caltech.
This year, an object dropped into Earth's orbit like a second moon, and it made its final close approach to our planet.
It's a "minimoon" or temporary satellite. The object is a leftover fragment of a 1960s rocket booster from the American Surveyor moon missions.
SO reached 42% of the way between Earth and the moon on Feb. 2, 2021. It was not the minimoon's closest trip to Earth. It was the shortest distance to our planet in a few months.
It has been in space and away from Earth ever since.
9. The sun's atmosphere is traveled through by the solar probe.
An artist's depiction of NASA's solar probe at work. Steve Gribben is a NASA/JohnsHopkins APL employee.
NASA's sun-kissing spaceship swam within a structure that is only visible during total solar eclipses and was able to measure where the star's "point of no return" is located.
The solar wind, a sea of charged particles that flow out of the sun and can affect Earth in many ways, is something scientists want to learn more about with the help of theParker Solar probe.
The corona is the outer atmosphere of the sun. The location of the critical surface was confirmed by the April 28 maneuver.
The probe was able to get as low as 15 solar radii, or 13 million km from the sun's surface. It passed through a structure called a pseudostreamer, which can be seen from Earth during a solar eclipse. NASA officials described that part of the trip as flying into the eye of a storm.
10. Perseverance is studying rocks on Mars.
The first panorama taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument on NASA's Perseverance Mars rover shows how much detail is captured by the camera system. The image is from NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ASU.
The arrival of NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars was the last thing that happened this year.
The mission has been looking for evidence of ancient Martian life since it arrived on the Red Planet. Engineers have put cameras in Perseverance to help the team decide what to look for.
TheHarbor Seal Rock is a feature that was probably carved out by the Martian wind over many years. Several rock samples have been obtained by Perseverance this year and will be collected by the space agency for analysis in the future.
The Jezero Crater was home to a river and a deep lake billions of years ago.
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