A look back at astronomy in 2004

From Sky and Telescope magazine:

December 30, 2004 | When astronomers look back on 2004, it will be remembered for long-awaited space missions, political controversy, and the arrival of an astronomical event never seen by living eyes. It certainly began with a bang. In January, two events rocked the scientific community and continued to reverberate throughout the entire year: NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers successful mission to Mars and NASA's announcement that the Space Shuttle would no longer service the Hubble Space Telescope

The first Mars rover, Spirit, reached the planet on January 3rd; it's twin, Opportunity, followed three weeks later. Designed with a 90-day shelf life, both vehicles long outlived their warrantees and continue to operate. The thousands of images they sent back to Earth told the story of Mars's watery past. And the evidence was overwhelming. Seemingly everywhere that the rovers' instruments examined, they found minerals which had formed in water — not just ancient puddles, but lasting shallow seas. The rovers continue to trundle on through the Martian winter. Who knows what they will discover in 2005.

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After seven years in interplanetary space, NASA's Cassini spacecraft began orbiting Saturn in July and earthlings became mesmerized by the detailed views of the planet's rings. More pictures of Saturn's many moons will come over the next four years of operation. But one of the most anticipated planetary-science events will happen in a couple of weeks. On December 24th Cassini successfully deployed the European-built Huygens probe that will plunge into the atmosphere of Titan on January 14th.

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There's been plenty of spectacular findings made with ground-based instruments too. Astronomers have spotted giant objects in the distant reaches of the solar system. In February, a research team announced the discovery of an object designated 2004 DW, a minor planet about two-thirds the size of Pluto orbiting beyond Neptune. Less than a month later, the same astronomers brought us more-remarkable Sedna, whose 12,000-year-long orbit takes it farther away from the Sun than any known object.

Astronomers also detected yet more planets around other stars. Some of these new worlds are only the size of Neptune, which instills hope that Earth-size objects will eventually be found. Furthermore, infrared observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope are revealing how planetary systems form.

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More: http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1420_1.asp

A very interesting article that I somehow missed. I knew about much of the news, but had not heard about Sedna.

Glad to hear you are now introduced to the wonders of Sedna. Certainly not something to be missed.

:-)

Peter

Now I know everything that I could ever possibly want to know about our inner Oort cloud companion (OK, maybe not everything, but a lot). ;-)