With about 200 orbital launches scheduled and ambitious missions on everything from lunar bases to the search for life in the works, there’s a lot to watch in 2022. An astronomer explains the highlights.
Clouds, hellish temperatures, endless nights? Characterizing the atmosphere of exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than the sun, is a formidable task.
Some stars travel at high speeds through the universe and sometimes leave spectacular clouds of dust and gas in their wake.
NASA, ESA and R. Sahai (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Hypervelocity stars were discovered only 15 years ago and are the closest things in existence to real shooting stars. They travel at millions of miles per hour, so fast that they can escape from galaxies.
The Earth spins as it orbits the Sun. Elements of this image furnished by Nasa.
janez volmajer/Shutterstock
Megaconstellations of satellites will visually clutter the night sky, disrupting astronomical research. And the environmental damage caused by these satellites is still unknown.
An asteroid that landed in Russia in 2013 injured 1,500 people – and was just 20 metres in diameter. What could we do if a major threat was detected?
A composite image of the data collected by the ALMA telescope in Chile, showing spiral galaxies in the Virgo Cluster.
ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Dagnello (NRAO)/T. Brown (VERTICO)
Studying the extreme environment of the Virgo Cluster — which comprises thousands of galaxies — helps us learn what factors can affect and start or stop star formation.
There’s a lot we don’t know about galaxies.
Zakharchuk/Shutterstock
The International Space Station is a great example of how space has, for the most part, been a peaceful and collaborative international arena.
NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center/Flickr
Activities in space today are far more numerous and complicated compared to 1967, before humans had landed on the moon or Elon Musk had been born. Two experts explain the need for better laws to keep space peaceful.