51. NASA’s Perseverance Wreckage
Who Found It: NASA Ingenuity
Location: Mars
Est. Salary Of Finder: Unknown
In 2022, NASA Ingenuity made an incredible discovery while probing Mars. The Mars Helicopter was able to locate and study the remnants of the failed NASA Perseverance’s mission a little over one year prior.
NASA’s Perseverance Wreckage © NASA/JPL-Caltech
The color photographs of Mars returning back to earth are unprecedented and provide valuable insight into possibilities for future study of the Red Planet. Whether or not Ingenuity successfully returns home, astronauts and scientists are already calling this mission a resounding success.
52. Earendel
Year Found: 2022
Who Found It: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope
Location: Cetus constellation
In 2022 the star WHL0137-LS, also known as Earendel, was discovered by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Earendel is the earliest and most distant known star, and it existed within the first billion years after the big bang. The star is at a distance of 28 billion light-years.
Earendel ©NASA/Wikimedia
Astronomer Brian Welch of Johns Hopkins University was the lead author of the paper describing the discovery which was published in the journal Nature. “We almost didn’t believe it at first, it was so much farther than the previous most distant, highest redshift star,” Welch said. “Earendel existed so long ago that it may not have had all the same raw materials as the stars around us today.”
53. Accelerating Universe
Year Found: 1998
Who Found It: The Supernova Cosmology Project and The High-Z Supernova Search Team
Location: Universe
In 1998, two independent projects, the Supernova Cosmology Project and The High-Z Supernova Search Team concluded that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This result was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 which went to Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, and Adam G. Riess.
Accelerating Universe @newscientist/Pinterest
According to the study, the velocity at which a distant galaxy recedes from the observer is continuously increasing with time. Both previously mentioned teams used the distant type Ia supernovae to measure the acceleration. Evidence to confirm this has been found in baryon acoustic oscillations, and in analyses of the clustering of galaxies.
54. Proxima b
Year Found: 2016
Who Found It: Anglada-Escudé et al.
Location: The triple star system Alpha Centauri
Proxima Centauri b (also known as Proxima b and Alpha Centauri Cb) is an exoplanet that is orbiting in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri (the closest star to the sun). Proxima b is approximately 4.2 light-years from Earth, and together with Proxima c, and Proxima d, it is the closest known exoplanet to the Solar System.
Proxima b ©Matteo Omied/Alamy
While most of its properties are only poorly understood, it is believed to be an Earth-like planet. As of writing, it is unknown if it has an atmosphere. Proxima Centauri b was confirmed in August 2016 by the European Southern Observatory, after it was studied for years.
55. Formulating Solar System
Year Found: 2014
Who Found It: Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)
Location: Taurus
In 2014, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)—which is an astronomical interferometer of 66 radio telescopes located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile—revealed that a solar system is forming. The images taken of HL Tauri (which is a very young T Tauri star) show that planets are forming in the protoplanetary disk.
Formulating Solar System ©ArtEvent ET/Shutterstock
Based on the luminosity and effective temperature of the star, it is believed that HL Tauri is less than 100,000 years old. The protoplanetary disk was first noticed in 1975, but in the images made public in 2014, it is shown as a series of bright rings separated by gaps. The disks have evolved quicker than expected in the past 40 years, which suggests that the planetary formation might be faster as well.
56. Exoplanet Discovery
Year Found: 1992
Who Found It: Walter Sydney Adams
Location: Outside of the Solar System
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet that is located outside of the Solar System. Even though possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted all the way back in 1917 by astronomer Walter Sydney Adams, the scientific discovery of an exoplanet occurred in 1988.
Exoplanet Discovery @ESOAstronomy/Pinterest
In 1992, extrasolar planets were confirmed with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. As of July 2022, there are 5,108 confirmed exoplanets in 3,779 planetary systems. A majority of the discovered exoplanets have been detected by transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy.
57. Strange Bubbles
Year Found: 2010
Who Found It: NASA
Location: Milky Way Galaxy
In November 2010, NASA’s astronomers discovered enormous bubbles in the Milky Way thanks to the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The bubbles consist of ultra-powerful gamma rays and their origin is still unknown. Astronomers believe that whatever happened at the Milky Way’s core to create these bubbles occurred several millions of years ago.
Strange Bubbles ©Vladi333/Shutterstock
The bubbles are expanding at 2.2 million mph, and they hover above and below the black hole Sagittarius A in our Milky Way Galaxy. The two bubbles are touching, visually forming the number 8 or a sideways infinity symbol. The bubbles were named the Fermi Bubbles.
58. Przybylski’s Star
Year Found: 1961
Who Found It: Antoni Przybylski
Location: Centaurus
Rapidly oscillating Ap stars are a type of stars that complete one oscillation in the range of 5 and 23 minutes. One of such stars is Przybylski’s Star (HD 101065) which is oscillating at roughly 355 light-years from the Sun.
Przybylski’s Star ©Sebman81/Wikimedia
It is located in the southern constellation of Centaurus, and it was discovered in 1961, by the Polish-Australian astronomer Antoni Przybylski. In 1978, it was discovered that the Przybylski’s Star pulsates photometrically with a period of 12.15 min. Today, it is known that the star contains radioactive elements technetium and promethium.
59. Fomalhaut Dust Ring
Year Found: 1920
Who Found It: Heber Curtis
Location: Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy that is approximately 2.5 million light-years away from Eart—and it is the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way. In 1920, American astronomer Heber Curtis noticed the appearance of dark lanes which resembled the dust clouds within the Andromeda Galaxy.
Formalhaut Dust Ring ©NASA Image Collection/Alamy
The dust rings of the Andromeda Galaxy are made of lots of different molecules which glow in the infrared, which is why we can see them in images. The dust rings follow the spiral pattern of the galaxy, and they are created when stars are born and when they die.
60. Needle’s Eye Galaxy
Year Found: 1795
Who Found It: William Herschel
Location: Coma Berenice
Needle’s Eye Galaxy (NGC 4565) is an edge-on spiral galaxy that is located in the Coma Berenice constellation, between 30 to 50 million light-years away from Earth. Needle’s Eye Galaxy lies near the North Galactic Pole and it was first discovered in 1785 by William Herschel.
Needle’s Eye Galaxy ©NASA/JPL-Caltech/Wikimedia
The Needle’s Eye Galaxy is famous for its peculiar hole on one side of its core, which is believed to have been caused by a collision with dark matter. The name of the galaxy originates in its narrow profile. The Needle’s Eye Galaxy is known for being more luminous than the Andromeda Galaxy.
61. Wreckage On Mars
Year Found: 2022
Who Found It: NASA
Location: Mars
The mysterious wreckage on Mars is not a strange phenomenon of the universe—it’s actually just the wreckage of the Perseverance rover. Nicknamed Percy, the car-sized Mars rover was meant to explore the Jezero crater on Mars and it was part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission.
Wreckage On Mars ©UPI/Alamy
During the landing of Percy on the Martian surface in February 2021, the backshell separated and it hit the ground at 78 mph. However, as seen in the images, it remained in a rather good condition. Researchers are using this event to help NASA’s next operation on Mars—returning rocks and soil to Earth.
62. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein
Year Found: 2014
Who Found It: Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein
Location: N/A
The Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (C/2014 UN271) is a large Oort cloud comet that was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in old footage taken by The Dark Energy Survey. The first images of the Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein were taken in October 2014 and at the time it was 2.7 billion miles away from the Sun.
Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein @willgater/Twitter
The Comet Bernardinelli–Bernstein has a nucleus diameter of at least 75 miles which makes it the largest known Oort cloud comet. In January 2031, it is expected to reach just outside of Saturn’s orbit, but it will not be visible to the naked eye as it won’t enter the inner Solar System.
63. Comet 2I/Borisov
Year Found: 2018
Who Found It: Gennadiy Borisov
Location: N/A
2I/Borisov is the first observed rogue comet as well as the second observed interstellar interloper after ʻOumuamua. The comet was discovered by the Crimean amateur astronomer and telescope maker Gennadiy Borisov in August 2019. The rogue comet is not bound to the Sun, and it passed through the ecliptic of the Solar System in October 2019.
Comet 2I/Borisov ©NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt/Wikimedia
In November 2019, astronomers from Yale University revealed that the comet’s tail was 14 times the size of Earth, adding that “it is humbling to realize how small Earth is next to this visitor from another solar system.”
64. Nuclear Pasta
Year Found: 2013
Who Found It: D. G. Ravenhall, C. J. Pethick, and J. R. Wilson
Location: N/A
Leftovers from a dead star from the strongest substance in the universe—something that is also called nuclear pasta. Protons and neutrons in a star’s shriveled husk can survive insane gravitational pressure, and they end up becoming squeezed into linguini-like tangles of material, hence the name.
Nuclear Pasta @Nahks Tr’Ehnl, Penn State /Yahoo.com
As of writing, the understanding of nuclear pasta in neutron stars is mostly based on theoretical calculations. According to Matthew Caplan, a postdoctoral research fellow at McGill University “the strength of the neutron star crust, especially the bottom of the crust, is relevant to a large number of astrophysics problems, but isn’t well understood.”
65. A Moon With A Moon
Year Found: 2021
Who Found It: NASA
Location: N/A
A moon orbiting a moon—which is also known as a submoon or moonmoon—is a hypothetical natural satellite that orbits the moon of a planet. While no submoon has been discovered yet, in theory, its existence is possible. Dr. Raymond and his colleague, Dr. Juna Kollmeier from the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington study the potential existence of a submoon.
A Moon With A Moon ©World History Archive/Alamy
According to them, a handful of known moons like Callisto, Titan, Iapetus, and the Moon are capable of hosting long-lived submoons, at least in theory. “Callisto fits the bill of a satellite that could host its own satellite, although none have been found so far,” they revealed.