1. Mars Rover: The successful landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars in February 2021, equipped with various scientific instruments and advanced cameras to study the planet’s geology and search for signs of ancient life.
2. James Webb Space Telescope: The highly anticipated successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, set to launch in late 2021. It promises to revolutionize our understanding of the universe with its larger, more powerful instruments.
3. SpaceX Crewed Missions: SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, has been conducting crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS). This marks a major shift in space exploration, as it represents a transition from government-led missions to commercial space travel.
4. First Image of a Black Hole: In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope project captured the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole located at the center of the M87 galaxy. This monumental achievement provided new insights into the nature of black holes.
5. Commercial Space Tourism: Companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are at the forefront of the emerging field of space tourism. These companies aim to make space travel accessible to private individuals in the near future.
6. Discovery of Exoplanets: Throughout the past decade, astronomers have made numerous discoveries of exoplanets, planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. Many of these discoveries have included Earth-like exoplanets, increasing the potential for finding life beyond our planet.
7. Breakthrough Starshot: Launched in 2016, this ambitious project aims to send a fleet of tiny spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri star system, 4.37 light-years away, within a few decades using laser propulsion technology.
8. Gravitational Wave Detection: In 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) made the groundbreaking detection of gravitational waves, confirming a major prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
9. Artemis Program: NASA’s Artemis program plans to return humans to the Moon by 2024, including the first woman on the lunar surface. It aims to lay the groundwork for future manned missions to Mars.
10. Comet and Asteroid Missions: In recent years, space agencies have launched several missions to study comets and asteroids up close. Notable examples include the Rosetta mission, which landed a probe on a comet, and the OSIRIS-REx mission, which collected a sample from asteroid Bennu for return to Earth.