Dec. 25 (UPI) -- In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic demanded the attention of thousands of scientists, but they had a lot to look in to, including vaccines and treatments for the novel coronavirus.
But not all science remained earthbound.
Many scientists kept their attention on the skies, searching for answers to cosmic mysteries and preparing for the next chapter in the history of human spaceflight.
Here are five of the most astounding space-related scientific breakthroughs and discoveries made over the last 12 months.
These discoveries have set the stage for even more compelling advances in the year ahead -- a year during which NASA hopes to fly a helicopter on Mars and send its first Artemis test flights to the moon.
Hottest picture in space
While scientists have insight into the inner workings of the sun, there is much about the star that researchers still don't understand, like why its atmosphere is hotter than its surface or what exactly fuels coronal mass ejections.
In 2020, scientists got a closer look at some of the sun's most perplexing phenomena, thanks to a pair of observatories: NASA's High Resolution Coronal Imager, a sub-orbital telescope called Hi-C and the agency's Solar Orbiter, a space probe jointly managed with the European Space Agency.
This spring, scientists working on the Hi-C mission shared the sharpest-ever photos of the sun, revealing fine magnetic threads of super heated plasma that make up the sun's outer layer.
"These new Hi-C images give us a remarkable insight into the Sun's atmosphere," said Amy Winebarger, Hi-C principal investigator at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Not to be outdone, NASA and European Space Agency researchers working on the Solar Orbiter mission released the closest images yet taken of the Earth's host star.
"These amazing images will help scientists piece together the sun's atmospheric layers," Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a press release.
"[That understanding] is important for understanding how it drives space weather near the Earth and throughout the solar system," Gilbert said.
Quakes on Mars
In 2020, researchers published the first scientific papers utilizing data collected by NASA's InSight lander. Since the spacecraft began its scientific mission in late 2018, its seismometer has detected hundreds of Marsquakes.
The frequencies of the seismic waves recorded by InSight's instruments suggest the craft landed on a large patch of sand that extends a few feet below the Martian surface.
According to analysis by researchers at NASA and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Mars' composition beneath the sandy topsoil a lot like Earth's crystalline crust, but more fractured.
Researchers were able to link some of the Red Planet's quakes to a volcanically active region known as Cerberus Fossae, which is characterized by a pair of deep channels that were created by lava flows some 10 million years ago.
"It's just about the youngest tectonic feature on the planet," planetary geologist Matt Golombek, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a news release. "The fact that we're seeing evidence of shaking in this region isn't a surprise, but it's very cool."
Watery exoplanets
The search for life continues to dominate the field of planetary science. It has inspired a variety of investigations by different kinds of scientists, from geochemists to astrobiologists, but it is also has centered largely on the never-ending hunt for extraterrestrial water.
This summer, scientists at NASA used sophisticated mathematical models to predict whether Earth-like exoplanets near our solar system host water.
Lynnae Quick, planetary scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, found a quarter of the 53 exoplanets analyzed are likely to be ocean worlds. This means they feature large bodies of water encased in layers of ice -- like Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa.
"Forthcoming missions will give us a chance to see whether ocean moons in our solar system could support life," Quick said in a NASA news release. "If we find chemical signatures of life, we can try to look for similar signs at interstellar distances."
Lunar rocks
Last year, China became the first space-faring nation to put a spacecraft on the dark side of the moon. This year, China's space agency became the first in decades to collect and return lunar rock samples to Earth.
In early December, China's Chang'e-5 lander touched down on Mons Rumker, a 1.2-billion-year-old volcanic plain inside Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, situated on the near side of the moon.
After collecting 4.4 pounds of rock samples, the lander lifted off from the surface of the moon and rendezvoused with the spacecraft's orbiter.
On Dec. 17, the Chang'e-5 return capsule, having safely separated from the main spacecraft some 3,000 miles above the southern Atlantic Ocean, touched down in Inner Mongolia.
Asteroid hunting
This year, NASA became the second nation to successfully collect rocks and dust from the surface of an asteroid.
In early October, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft performed a touch-and-go maneuver while circling the asteroid Bennu.
The rock samples were successfully sealed in a capsule and are ready for their trip home. The journey back to Earth will begin next year, but the rock samples aren't expected to touch down until 2023.
Scientists hope the samples will help scientists decipher the solar system's early history, as well as aid "planetary defense" engineers with missions to protect earth from rogue asteroids.
Bennu is believed to offer a window into the solar system's past since it's a pristine, carbon-rich body carrying building blocks of both planets and life.
While NASA waits for its own asteroid rocks, Japan's space agency reported its own asteroid sample return mission, Hayabusa-2, was a success.
In early December, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency successfully retrieved capsules carrying rocks from the asteroid Ryugu and gas from deep space.
Out-of-this-world images from space
An image of the area where the Perseverance Mars rover landed is shown during an update at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on February 18. Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA | License Photo
The first photos taken by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover after landing on the Martian surface on February 18. A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
The United Arab Emirates' Hope probe captured this photo of Mars from about 15,500 miles above the Red Planet’s surface. The UAE Space Agency released the image on February 14, 2021 days after the probe entered
Mars' orbit. Photo by UAE Space Agency/UPI |
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The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts is pictured approaching the International Space Station for docking on November 16, 2020. The trip from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida took 27 and a half hours. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
NASA Astronaut Chris Cassidy, serving as commander of the Expedition 63 mission aboard the International Space Station, took these photos of Hurricane Laura as it continued to strengthen in the Gulf of Mexico on August 25. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
The International Space Station was orbiting over Kazakhstan and into China while the solar eclipse shadowing a portion of the Asian continent was captured by an external high definition camera on June 21. In the left foreground, is the H-II Transfer Vehicle-9 from Japan. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy (L) and Bob Behnken work on U.S. spacesuits inside the ISS's Quest airlock on June 20. The two are slated to conduct spacewalks on June 26 and July 1 to begin the replacement of batteries for one of the power channels on the orbiting laboratory. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
This satellite image from June 14 shows a brush fire, sparked by a vehicle fire, near Bush Highway and Arizona State Route 87. By June 16, nearly 65,000 acres northeast of Phoenix had burned, making the Bush Fire the largest in the state this year and the largest burning now in the United States. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
Tropical Storm Cristobal is pictured on June 7 from the ISS as it was nearing southeastern Louisiana. The orbiting lab was just off the coast of West Palm Beach, Fla., when this photograph was taken. Photo courtesy of NASA
An orbital nighttime view from the ISS as it orbited above the Indian Ocean shows the "aurora australis" and a starry sky with Russia's Progress 74 resupply ship in the foreground on June 7. Photo courtesy of NASA
A waning gibbous moon is pictured just above the Earth's horizon as the ISS orbits over the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Angola on June 7. Photo courtesy of NASA
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley (L) and Bob Behnken, who flew SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, briefs mission controllers about their experience in the new vehicle on June 1. Photo courtesy of NASA
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, is pictured approaching the International Space Station with part of southwestern Turkey, including the coastal city of Demrem, in the background on May 31. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
Northrup Grumman's Cygnus resupply ship, with its prominent cymbal-shaped UltraFlex solar arrays, is pictured in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm moments before its release
ending its 83-day stay at the International Space Station on May 11. Photo courtesy of NASA |
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Somalia's capital city, Mogadishu is seen as the International Space Station passed over the Horn of Africa on February 19. This historic port on the coast of the Indian Ocean is home to more than 2 million people. The red and orange colors in the dune fields are due to natural chemical and weathering processes that left behind traces of iron in the sandy minerals. These dunes stand in contrast to the lightly-colored, calcium carbonate-rich sands near the shore. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
NASA's Juno mission captured this look at Jupiter's tumultuous northern regions during the spacecraft's close approach to the planet on February 17. Notable features in this view are the long, thin bands that run through the center of the image from top to bottom, observed since Juno's first close pass by Jupiter in 2016. The streaks are layers of haze particles that float above the underlying cloud features. Scientists don't yet know precisely what these hazes are made of or how they form. NASA/UPI | License Photo
This image is one of the most photogenic examples of the many turbulent stellar nurseries the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed during its 30-year lifetime. The portrait features the giant nebula NGC 2014 and its neighbor NGC 2020, which together form part of a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, about 163,000 light-years away. The image is nicknamed the "Cosmic Reef" because it resembles an undersea world. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
This Hubble image shows a globular cluster known as NGC 104, or, more commonly, 47 Tucanae, since it is part of the constellation of Tucana (The Toucan) in the southern sky. Scientists using Hubble observed the white dwarfs in the cluster. These dying stars migrate from the crowded center of the cluster to its outskirts. While astronomers knew about this process, they had never seen it in action until the detailed study of 47 Tucanae. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away, was imaged with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 aboard Hubble. This image reveals the true shape of MyCn18 to be an hourglass with an intricate pattern of "etchings" in its walls. This picture has been composed from three separate images taken in the light of ionized nitrogen (represented by red), hydrogen (green), and doubly ionized oxygen (blue). Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
The Eagle Nebula's Pillars of Creation, one of Hubble's most iconic images, shows the pillars as seen in visible light, capturing the multi-colored glow of gas clouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and the rust-colored elephants' trunks of the nebula's famous pillars. With these new images comes better contrast and a clearer view for astronomers to study how the structure of the pillars is changing over time. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
This image from Hubble shows the dramatic shape and color of the Ring Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 57. From Earth's perspective, the nebula looks like a simple elliptical shape with a shaggy boundary. However, observations combining existing ground-based data with new Hubble data show that the nebula is shaped like a distorted doughnut. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
This image from Hubble depicts bright blue newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the center of a star-forming region known as N90. The dust in the region gives these distant galaxies a reddish-brown tint. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard Hubble snapped this image of the planetary nebula, cataloged as NGC 6302, but more popularly called the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula, on July 27, 2009. NGC 6302 lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3800 light-years away. The "butterfly" stretches for more than two light-years, which is nearly half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
Hubble's image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for several weeks in early 2002. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
This picture, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard Hubble, shows the upper 2.5 light-years of the Cone Nebula (in NGC 2264), a height that equals 23 million roundtrips to the moon. The entire pillar is seven light-years long. Astronomers believe that these pillars may be incubators for developing stars. The ACS made this observation on April 2, 2002. Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA | License Photo
This composite image, produced by the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite, provides a view of the Americas at night. The clouds and sun glint, added here for aesthetic effect, are derived from MODIS instrument land surface and cloud cover products. Photo courtesy of NASA/UPI | License Photo
The "aurora australis" is pictured near the southernmost point of the International Space Station's orbital trek above the Indian Ocean on April 8. Photo courtesy of NASA
The NGC 4651 galaxy may look serene and peaceful as it swirls in the vast, silent emptiness of space. It is believed that this galaxy consumed another smaller galaxy to become the beautiful spiral. Although only a telescope like the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which captured this image, could give a picture this clear, NGC 4651 can also be observed with an amateur telescope. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo
The Canadarm2 robotic arm and Dextre, the fine-tuned robotic hand, are remotely controlled on Earth to extract Bartolomeo from the pressurized trunk of the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship on March 25. Bartolomeo is a European Space Agency science payload system that will enable numerous external science experiments to be conducted and controlled outside the space station. Photo courtesy of NASA
The bright lights of Osaka, Japan, on Osaka Bay were pictured from the International Space Station on March 15 during an orbital night pass 259 miles above the island nation. Photo courtesy of NASA
The cities of southeast China glitter brightly during an orbital night pass on March 5 as the International Space Station soared 259 miles above the Asian continent. The brightest lights at right center represent the city of Shanghai on the coast of the East China Sea. Photo courtesy of NASA
The atmospheric glow floats above Earth's moonlit horizon beneath a starry sky on March 4 as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above central Asia. Photo courtesy of NASA
The Florida peninsula is pictured looking northward on February 28 as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above the Caribbean Sea. Photo courtesy of NASA
The well-lit New York/New Jersey metropolitan area is viewed during the early morning hours on February 2 as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above the northeastern United States. Landmarks include the dark rectangular area (lower center) that is Central Park in Manhattan. Photo courtesy of NASA
Mount Rainier is viewed from the International Space Station on February 19. Photo courtesy of NASA
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a spiral galaxy known as NGC 4689. It is known as an "anemic galaxy," a galaxy that contains only quite small quantities of the raw materials needed to produce stars. This image was featured as ESA's Picture of the Week during the week of February 21. Image courtesy of ESA
Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo craft is pictured on February 18 attached to the International Space Station's Unity module
shortly after being captured with the Canadarm2 robotic arm, where it will stay for three months. Photo courtesy of NASA
The ISS flies in front of the moon in February as seen from Madrid. The photographer attached a camera to a telescope and while recording at 25 frames per second captured the 690-millisecond transit on video and composed this image of 17 stacked frames. Photo courtesy of Javier Manteca/ESA
The Mississippi River runs past Lake Pontchartrain, through the city of New Orleans, La., and into the Gulf of Mexico beaming from the sun's glint on February 7. Photo courtesy of NASA
NASA astronaut and Expedition 62 flight engineer
Jessica Meir observes a floating sphere of water formed by microgravity inside the ISS's Kibo laboratory module on February 9. Photo courtesy of NASA
The ISS was orbiting 266 miles above the Pacific Ocean when this picture was taken just off the western coast of North America on February 9. At top is California's San Francisco Bay. Washington state's Columbia River appears at the bottom of the frame. Photo courtesy of NASA
The Pine Island Glacier recently spawned an iceberg over 115 square miles that very quickly
shattered into pieces. This almost cloud-free image, captured on February 11 by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, shows the freshly broken bergs in detail. Photo courtesy of ESA
The cork heat shield of the European Space Agency's Qarman CubeSat burns away in simulated atmospheric
re-entry conditions, during ground testing on February 12. Qarman (QubeSat for Aerothermodynamic Research and Measurements on Ablation) will gather data on atmospheric re-entry using temperature and pressure sensors and a spectrometer. Photo courtesy of ESA
The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain on the European continent from Morocco on the African continent. The ISS was orbiting 265 miles above the Atlantic off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal, when this photograph was taken on February 11. Photo courtesy of NASA
Noctilucent clouds, or
night shining clouds, the highest clouds in the Earth's atmosphere, are pictured from the International Space Station orbiting 269 miles above the South Pacific on February 12. Noctilucent clouds are only visible when the sun is below the Earth's horizon and illuminates them. Photo courtesy of NASA
