In 2023, humanity looked toward the sky to discover, gather and uncover some of the greatest mysteries in the cosmos.
This year saw incredibly detailed images from the most advanced telescope in space, as well as the 25th year of a global partnership sending astronauts to orbit Earth.
WATCH MORE: James Webb Space Telescope prompts scientists to rethink understanding of the universe
“It just goes on and on,” Miles O’Brien, PBS NewsHour science correspondent, said. What most surprised him this year was how space travel is “coming of age” and how more international space programs, like India’s, are “coming on board.”
Here are the top five space events in 2023, according to O’Brien.
The ‘hum of the universe’
The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has been studying pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars. Those pulsars emit radio frequencies that can be used to detect gravitational waves – the type of waves that come from supermassive black holes. Astronomers with NANOGrav say they now can detect the “sound” these specific types of gravitational waves make.
“This goes to the very heart of understanding all about supermassive black holes,” O’Brien said. And maybe, maybe might get us a little closer to the elusive hunt for dark matter.”
Hypothetical dark matter makes up more than a quarter of the universe, but so far, the science community knows very little about what it is or how it works.
The James Webb Space Telescope
“Fundamentally, James Webb is rewriting the astronomy textbooks right now,” O’Brien said.
The James Webb telescope was sent into space at the end of 2021 and has built on the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. Its first images stunned the astronomy world two years ago and the telescope is still looking “back in time” at galaxies and stars. So far the telescope has captured the clearest images yet of “stellar nurseries” and captured the smallest brown dwarf star ever observed.
“James Webb, right out of the box has done amazing things well,” O’Brien said. “There’s so many discoveries, it’s hard to keep up with them. Every time it points its gaze in every direction, it changes the way we think about the universe.”
OSIRIS-REx bringing asteroid samples to Earth
OSIRIS-REx was the first American attempt to go to an asteroid and bring back a sample of the space rock. After the spacecraft dropped off the material, it remained in space to explore a different asteroid.
WATCH MORE: What scientists hope to learn from asteroid sample returned to Earth on NASA spacecraft
Scientists get excited about asteroid material because the objects, they believe, could be conveyors and “propagators of life in our universe” as they can be carbon-rich.
NASA says that an “abundance of material” found on and around the canister lid is making it harder to open and study the material collected, but that the bits clinging to the outside already are more than the team anticipated.
“There was enough extra stuff even outside of the container to declare mission success,” O’Brien said. “And already they’re scratching their head at what they’ve seen. There are a lot of big surprises. Look for some very significant peer reviewed papers coming out of that one.”
25 years of the International Space Station
The International Space Station circles the globe every 90 minutes, but is soon set to be decommissioned. NASA has agreed to fly the station until 2030, with Russia saying they expect to leave sooner. But the agreement between two Cold War rivals to study science together in orbit is “an extraordinary accomplishment.”
“Maybe science isn’t at the top,” O’Brien said. “The partnership itself, though, is so extraordinary.”
Some of the top breakthroughs NASA credits to the ISS are new water purification systems, methods to combat muscle atrophy and bone loss and growing food in microgravity.
Record-breaking number of U.S. rocket launches
There were 105 successful rocket launches from U.S. soil in 2023, O’Brien said, making it a record year for blasting stuff into outer space.
The majority of those launches were from SpaceX, Elon Musk’s spacecraft manufacturer that contracts with NASA to launch satellites and crews out of the Earth’s atmosphere.
“We are on the cusp of …low-Earth orbit being a little cheaper, a little more accessible,” O’Brien said. “And of course, as the price goes down, there are more customers for the services. And that’s kind of what we’re seeing right now with Space X this past year.”
