Spatial missions traversed the solar system in 2024

From Mercury’s monitoring to the beginning of a new adventure on an icy moon of Jupiter, the ship and astronauts made large steps in 2024. Here are some of this year’s highlights in space.

New lunar visitors

The moon has been a hot destination for space agencies and private companies in recent years, and 2024 was no exception.

In January, the thin Japanese spacecraft made a successful, but loped landing with precision on a crater’s edge, marking the first soft landing of the country on the moon. Smart solar -energy lander for moon investigation was created to collect data for a lunar day, or about two weeks on the ground, before the night fell and became too dark and cold to survive. But Slim surprised everyone by sending signals to the ground for three months.

Slim joined another Lander inadvertently in February. Odysseus, a spaceship built by Houston -based intuitive car, touched down and crashed near the south pole Lunar. During its six-day mission, the probe sent data that may be teaching for the NASA Artemis mission, which aims to lower people on the moon in 2026 (Sn: 3/23/24, p. 16).

Finally, China’s Chang’e spatial space 6 captured the first samples from the Moon in June (Sn: 6/29/24, p. 12). The first look at the samples revealed the land that is fluffy than the land closely. A chemical analysis of samples, reported in Naturesuggests Farside was volcanic active about 2.8 billion years ago (Sn: 11/15/24).

Meanwhile, orbit Chang’e 6 appeared in a place rotating the sun called L2, the same region of space occupied by the James Webb spatial telescope. It is still not clear what the Chinese space agency plans to do with it there.

Moments in March

2024 opened with a farewell with a beloved Mars explorer. NASA’s similarity, nicknamed Ginny, was the first helicopter to operate on the red planet. The craft had to fly several times over 30 days; Instead, it took 72 flights for nearly three years. The air explorer was finally based in January after his Rotor blade were damaged (Sn: 1/25/24).

Ingenuity’s friend, The Persistence Rover, probably made his most important discovery still in July: a rock containing suggestions of ancient germs (Sn: 8/24/24, p. 6). But the discovery came against a backdrop of uncertainty: the budget for the planned mission of sample return to March of NASA is in danger (Sn: 6/15/24, p. 12)which means that the intriguing part of the rock may not return it to Earth for further studies.

Private heights and landings of spatial flight

Four years after Spacex became the first private company to launch astronauts at the International Space Station, the company supported another commercial milestone: the first space of all space civilians (Sn: 5/27/20). The Polaris Dawn mission launched four astronauts at the September space station. The crew tested the new space spaces and collected data on the radiation and physiology of astronauts. A crew member, Sarah Gillis, also became the first person to play the violin in space.

Another private company had a tougher time of it. The Starliner Boeing’s spaceship launched astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore at the June space for an eight-day mission, but problems with ship promoters delayed the return of astronauts. Starliner returned to the ground in September without its crew. Williams and Wilmore will stay at the space station until February when a Dragon Spacex spaceship will bring them home.

The end of an asteroid hunting era

The land lost a planetary defender this year. In August, NASA said good night to the Neowise telescope after spending more than a decade scanning the sky for asteroid threats.

Neowise began in 2009 on a mission to study infrared light from distant cosmic objects (Sn: 12/10/09). When the telescope came out of the coolant, scientists rebuilt it to observe the approaching asteroids that also emit infrared light thanks to the sun’s heat.

During her life, Neowise observed thousands of asteroids and hundreds of comets, giving scientists a more accurate understanding of the dangers these spatial rocks present to the Earth. The loss of the telescope leaves us somewhat in the dark, but fortunately not for a long time. Another asteroid hunter, a survey, is expected to start no earlier than 2027.

New views of mercury

The Bepicolombo spaceship made a narrow Wednesday flight on September 4, taking the first view of the south pole of the planet.

The European and Japanese joint probe departed for Mercury in October 2018, and still has about two years to pass until it arrives. Because Mercury is so close to the sun and its gravitational power, it is not easy to maneuver a spaceship in orbit around the small planet. Bepicolombo is making narrow Mercury transitions and using the gravity of the planet to make it on the course to enter the orbit in November 2026.

A flight this year gave the spatial footage of Mercury’s space that will not even have when it is in orbit. Bepicolombo approached on Wednesday night, so the planet’s crater rims threw deep shadows that could reveal new details about their topography.

The next flyby will be on January 8th.

Europe, Ahoy!

NASA’s Clipper Europa Clipper ship began on October 14, bound for an icy Jupiter moon that may have conditions for life to exist (Sn: 10/8/24). Because Europe expects an ocean of liquid water under a thick ice shell, it is one of the main contenders for extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

Once Clipper arrives at Jupiter in 2030, the spaceship will make nearly 50 moon flys to study its ocean below the surface. Clipper will not orbite Europe directly due to Jupiter’s strong magnetic field, which blocks high amounts of radiation that disrupt technology near the moon. Instead, the clipper will be dipped in and out of this radiation field to avoid prolonged exposure, data receipt and then return to recover before dipping inside.