What a decade it’s been for astronomy and space! The Earth tied its all-time record for 10 full orbits around the Sun, long-term missions like New Horizons, Kepler, and Hubble produced years of results, and more photons than ever before poured into the CCDs of telescopes peering into the heavens.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t all been progress. Many ambitious projects are stalled for lack of funding (or other reasons), the U.S. currently has no means of conveyance into orbit for manned missions, and humankind’s scoreboard for “number of planets visited” remains stubbornly pegged at 1.5 for the fiftieth straight year (moons count for half).
So come along with us as we recount the celestial heights and cold soundless voids of the past decade in space, in a highly subjective and incomplete fashion.
2011
Last space shuttle flight
After 135 missions, the Space Shuttle program flew for the final time. The shuttle was used to deploy and repair instruments like the Hubble Observatory over the course of its 30-year run, and the U.S. still does not have a way to get its brave astro-men and -women into space (other than renting Russian space jalopies).
2012
Transit of Venus
From our perspective on Earth, Venus passes directly in front of the disk of the sun only twice every 120 years or so. These events, called transits, happen in pairs separated by eight years. 2012 was the second of one of these pairs — prior to 2004, the previous set was in 1874 and 1882.
In previous centuries, observing these events from different locations on Earth was used to measure the size of the solar system by triangulation. This time around it was just for show, but it was still pretty cool.
2013
Chelyabinsk meteor
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There are a lot of car accident scams and corrupt cops in Russia, so basically everyone there has dashcams. Which comes in very handy when the bright fireball from a meteor burning up in the atmosphere happens over Russia, because it means we got to see dozens of videos of the blast.
The meteoroid itself was heavier than the Eiffel Tower, and the largest impact since the 1908 Tunguska explosion. About 1,500 people reported injuries (mostly from windows broken by the shockwave), but thankfully no one was killed.
Planck results
The ESA’s Planck mission mapped tiny variations in the temperature of light emitted shortly* after the Big Bang, when the universe still had that new car smell. Studying these variations, known as the “anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background,” allows scientists to find the age of the universe, its rate of expansion, and a bunch of other things about its contents. These results (which were further refined two years later) are the current cosmological benchmark.
*(if you call 380,000 years “shortly”… which you do, if you’re the universe)
2014
BICEP2 detects gravitational waves from the early universe — or maybe not
The BICEP experiment measured polarization in that cosmic microwave background signal. If certain theories of cosmic inflation are right, it ought to have created gravitational waves that would make a polarization signal in that relic radiation.
Initially, BICEP claimed they had observed such a signal, but it later came to light that the team had scraped a map of cosmic dust from the PDF of a conference talk to calibrate the sky’s dust pattern. That didn’t work, because it wasn’t really accurate enough for that kind of purpose, and the result didn’t hold up.
2015
New Horizons gets to Pluto
After flying through space for nine years, faster than any other man-made object ever, New Horizons streamed past the solar system’s most conspicuous former planet.
2016
Gravitational waves observed for real
Image: T. Pyle/LIGO
LIGO successfully observed the space-warping effects of two black holes spiraling into each other. Some of the energy from the collision was transported away from the scene of the incident in the form of ripples in spacetime, seen on Earth in the minuscule expansion and contraction of a couple of 4 km-long tubes filled with lasers.
2017
‘Oumuamua
The first discovery of an object foreign to our solar system was observed passing through it on a hyperbolic orbital trajectory. Additional observations seemed to indicate that it was approximately cigar-shaped and tumbling end over end … and that it was almost certainly not some kind of alien probe.
In August, a total solar eclipse swept through much of the contiguous United States. Skies grew dark at midday, animals panicked, and President Donald Trump boldly defied the small-minded busybodies of the astronomical and medical establishments by choosing to look directly at it.
2019
Direct image of a black hole
Radio astronomers observing the black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy created the first detailed image of material heated as it falls into the massive gravity well. The image distinctly shows a central accretion disk tipped toward us, and a glowing halo surrounding the event horizon. Perhaps best of all, it looks exactly the way you would like a black hole to look.
Honorable Mentions
2012: Contrary to John Cusack and a total misunderstanding of the Mayan calendar, the world does not end.
2017: Felix Baumgartner jumps out of space at the behest of Red Bull ad execs.
2019: Foreshadowing what is sure to be some kind of nervous breakdown, Elon Musk launches a car into space for some reason. Our parents got the Apollo mission, but I guess this is okay, too.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
