2015 is going to be ANOTHER huge year for historic space events -- here’s 5 stories
that I’M most excited about.
Hi there!
I’m Ian O’Neill, space producer for Discovery News, and if you are as huge a space fan as
I am, you’ll know that 2014 has been an epic year for space exploration and astronomy.
But what about 2015?
The next 12 months can’t be as crazy as the last 12, can it?
Let’s find out…
The biggest piece of 2015 space news on everyone’s mind is likely NASA’s New Horizon’s flyby
of mysterious Pluto.
The nuclear-powered robot is currently out of hibernation and racing toward the icy Kuiper
Belt -- Pluto’s neighborhood.
The mission is expected to make its historic close approach in July and then continue its
journey through the Kuiper Belt, a region of the solar system we've only glimpsed from
afar.
We’ll finally get a close-up look at Pluto’s icy landscape, its family of moons and primordial
chunks of debris from the earliest formation of the solar system.
But will the mission change Pluto’s status from dwarf planet back to planet?
Probably not, but who cares!
WE’RE GOING TO SEE PLUTO UP CLOSE FOR THE FIRST TIME.
And that’s just awesome.
Why don’t we call 2015 the “Year of the Dwarf Planet” … or “Year of the Planetoid”
… or something.
Yes, next year we are going to visit ANOTHER dwarf planet… or protoplanet?
Or really, really big asteroid?
(Someone REALLY needs to sort out these definitions!)
NASA’s DAWN mission, that is currently exploring the solar system’s asteroid belt, is about
to make its SECOND stop along its epic solar system tour.
After leaving massive asteroid Vesta in late 2012, the solar powered robotic probe will
become the first mission to visit Ceres and orbit TWO celestial bodies.
DAWN will reach Ceres, the solar system’s innermost dwarf planet, by early April.
Putting dwarf planets to one side for now, 2015 promises to be another exciting year
for advances in human spaceflight and one important event I’ll be keeping a close
eye on is a long-duration spaceflight experiment involving NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian
cosmonaut Mik-hile Korn-i-enko.
The two spacemen will live and work on the International Space Station for a whole year
after launch in March.
Although Russian cosmonauts have spent longer in space in the past during missions on board
the Soviet Mir space station, this will be the longest space mission for a NASA astronaut
and the longest ever stay on the International Space Station intended to understand the impacts
long-duration spaceflight has on the human body.
Next up, a cool development in the commercial space sector: As you probably know, NASA is
currently contracting two companies to deliver cargo to the ISS.
As an extension of these cargo missions, NASA also hopes to see private companies transporting
their astronauts into orbit, reducing America’s dependence on using the Russian Soyuz vehicle
for rides to the space station.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX revealed its crewed Dragon space vehicle last May and the company is
fast developing the means to get US astronauts back into space after the Space Shuttle was
retired in 2011.
By the end of 2015, according to official documents, SpaceX is aiming to carry out its
first manned test flight -- so watch this space!
Now for something COMPLETELY different!
Forget the “scientifically accurate” visualization of the black hole in the movie Interstellar,
we could soon see the dark void and bright ring in space generated by a REAL black hole.
Next year, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) will go online and begin collecting data.
After adding the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or “ALMA,” to the EHT in 2014,
the vast interferometer will be sensitive enough to spy on the fine details of the energetic
phenomena surrounding a black hole.
Yes.
REALLY.
The EHT interferometer will collect data from many different radio observatories located
in different continents, collecting it all in one place.
By doing this, the EHT is simulating one HUGE radio antennae with the power of one telescope
the diameter of our planet, making black hole astronomy a “thing.”
So does all this get you excited about space exploration in 2015?
Let me know in the comments below and please subscribe for more DNews every day of the
week.