As new telescopes, space companies and initiatives start up, it seems excitement for what lies beyond our planet has been growing rapidly in recent years. 2017 was a big year for exploring our solar system and understanding the much larger cosmos. We've compiled a few dozen of the biggest stories in space from the past year, from the hunt for E.T. to gravitational waves and more.
In the US, the space story of the year experienced first-hand by the most people was the Great American Total Eclipse in August. Millions of Americans traveled or just stepped outside to watch the rare coast-to-coast spectacle of our moon blotting out the sun.
After suffering a major setback in 2016, SpaceX not only resumed launching its reusable Falcon 9 rockets, it also picked up the pace, doubling the amount of completed missions over the prior year. Those missions included satellite and secretive space plane launches as well as resupplying the International Space Station.
Elon Musk's rocket company now plans even more launches for 2018, including the debut of its massive Falcon Heavy rocket.
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SpaceX
Musk to Mars 2.0
Elon Musk debuted his grand scheme to colonize Mars in 2016 and returned in September to double down on the plan, saying that SpaceX has found ways to make it cheaper to pull off and that unmanned rockets could start making the Red Planet voyage as soon as 2022.
Not to be outdone by Elon Musk and SpaceX, Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin continued to test and develop rival reusable rockets. It was also revealed that Bezos has designs on colonizing the moon, perhaps with help from extra-planetary Amazon shipments.
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Asgardia
Asgardia alights
The first "space kingdom" claimed its territory in November when the cubesat Asgardia-1 left Earth. The tiny satellite is basically an orbiting server for the many "citizens" of the virtual nation Asgardia and makes up the entirety of its territory.
In December, astronomers discovered a supermassive black hole so large that it shouldn't exist. The black hole dates to when the universe was very young, but is so huge (at 800 million times the mass of the sun) that astronomers can't figure out how it grew so big so fast.
We are definitely not hiding from the aliens any longer, if we ever were. In November, a group of artists and scientists sent a message designed to be received by alien intelligence in the direction of a nearby star system with a potentially habitable exoplanet.
The message features music and math, and if anyone is out there to receive it, we could conceivably get a response as soon as 2042.
This a particularly important first, ushering in a new era of what's called "multi-messenger astronomy" that could help unravel some of the universe's mysteries.
Pluto is no longer a planet, but in 2017 the search for other solar system planets even further out in space grew more intriguing. The gravitational influence of a hidden ninth planet could explain the strange movements of some Kuiper Belt objects and this year the effort to spot such a large, distant object ramped up.
This year also saw the debut of new theories, including the existence not just of an unseen ninth planet, but of a 10th planet as well.
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National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Listening for E.T.
The effort to scan the skies for signals from across the cosmos got a boost in 2017 from initiatives like the Stephen Hawking-backed Breakthrough Listen, new telescopes in Australia and elsewhere.
No definitive signs of E.T. have been heard just yet, but some false positives were ruled out and plenty of new data was collected to analyze over the past 12 months.
Telescopes trained on the star in May when it started doing weird things again and new theories posit that lots of space dust, and not alien structures may be responsible for the star's odd behavior.
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Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory
Still Wowing us
Forty years after first wowing astronomers, the so-called "Wow! Signal" was a point of discussion again in 2017. When one scientist proposed that comets could explain the inexplicable signal picked up by a radio telescope in 1977, Aliens could still explain the "Wow signal," scientists say, keeping alive the possibility that some sort of extra-terrestrial intelligence could be behind the exciting signal.
New findings in January from NASA's study of twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly surprised researchers. Scott was the first person to spend a year in space on board the International Space Station while Mark remained on Earth.
Preliminary results on the changes Scott's trip included the intriguing observation that sections of his DNA associated with longevity grew longer. More study is needed, but the finding has scientists wondering if space could be a counterintuitive fountain of youth.
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NASA/Chandra
Super supernovas
Space watchers spotted a number of high profile and unique supernovas in 2017. Dying stars often collapse in a spectacular explosion or "go supernova" at the end of their lives.
Of the many distant stars hosting exoplanets, Trappist-1 is one of the most enticing. First announced in February, the system boasts no less than seven planets, including three that could be in the habitable zone.
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Danielle Futselaar / METI
Fast Radio Bursts hit repeat
The odd phenomenon of "fast radio bursts," quick, bright bits of radio signal from across the cosmos, became weirder in 2017 when one of the bursts from a distant galaxy was observed to repeat. No other FRBs have ever been picked up more than once. More data should be forthcoming in 2018.
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NASA
Fake News in spaaace
Finally, even with the abundance of fascinating space news in 2017, a number of false, exaggerated or misrepresented stories also grabbed headlines, continuing the fake news trend that went mainstream in 2016.
So just for the record, Earth was never seriously threatened by a killer asteroid or a hidden planet at any point in 2017. And no, there is no child slave colony on Mars. I don't anticipate any of these things happening in 2018 either, but there should be plenty more exciting space news to come during our next trip around the sun.
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Discuss: The year in space: Phoning E.T. and ripples in space-time
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Discuss: The year in space: Phoning E.T. and ripples in space-time
Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion.