2019 was full of amazing scientific discoveries and achievements in space exploration. These 10 events are just the tip of the iceberg, but they're definitely some of the most memorable milestones of the year!

A snowman-shaped asteroid known as Arrokoth is the farthest object ever explored by a spacecraft. A 34-kilometers-wideasteroid is one of thousands of icy bodies that exist beyond the orbit of Neptune. First discovered in 2014 with the Hubble Space Telescope, the object was captured by the New Horizonsspacecraft on the first day of the year, January 1 2019.

2019 continued with the tremendous success of Change 4ssoft touchdown with the lunar surface. January 3, Chinese spacecraft landed on the far side of the Moon for the first time in history! Later this year, we have witnessed 2 more attempts to land a craft on the Moon safely, however, both of them failed. Unfortunate Israeli Beresheet mission and the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-2mission couldnt achieve the lunar milestone.

The Japanese sample-returning mission Hayabusa2 was launched from Earth on December 3, 2014,and met the 900-meters-wideasteroid 162173 RyuguJune 27, 2018. It orbited the space rock for months before it dared to collect the samples. On February 22,the spacecraft approached the surface of the asteroid and fired a bullet made of tantalum into Ryugu, blasting up debris. The material was collected using the spacecrafts specialized sampling horn. Thesecond touchdown was conducted July 10, made a carefully choreographed descent and collected another batch of samples using the same technique. November 2019 Hayabusa 2left the space rock alone andante headed back to Earth. Were expecting its return in late 2020.

Running more than two years behind schedule, the SpaceX Crew Dragon finally was launched atop aFalcon 9 rocket on March 2. The spacecraft docked with the ISS the next day as planned. The uncrewed mission ended on 8 March with a successful splashdown. This test flight was a critical milestone for the US: SinceNASA retired its fleet of space shuttles in 2011, the UShad to rely on Russianrockets and ships to carry astronauts to and from theISS.However, later this year, not everything went according to a plan: on April 20, 2019, the capsule used on Crew Demo-1was unexpectedly destroyed during a test of the SuperDracoengines.

This April, the world was astonished by the image of a black hole captured for the first time in history. The iconic picture showed a ring of light stretched around the supermassive 100-billion-kilometer-wide black hole in the heart of the M87 galaxy, 55 million light years away. To capture this giant, a team of 347 researchers from around the world linked 8 radio telescopes located in different parts of the globe to observe the same point of cosmos. This achievement couldnt be unnoticed by the scientific community: the team received$3 millionSpecial Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physicsand the result of their work was named the top scientific breakthrough of 2019 by the journal Science.

On May 23, 2019,SpaceXlaunched60 Starlink satellites into the low Earth orbit. The train of satellites maneuvering to the final orbit was spotted by people around the globe, that day it rained with UFO reports. The magnificent train of light was even captured on camera by a satellite tracker from the Netherlands, who shared his mind-blowing video with the world. The next batch was launched in November,60 more Starlinks joined companys growing broadband internet constellation. Overall, SpaceX has now permission to launch12000 satellites in order to provide internet connection to the remotest locations on the planet.

July 13Spektr-RG was launched to space from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The astrophysical space observatory, designed to study our Universe in the X-ray band, is an international Russian-German project. The spacecraftfeatures two telescopes:German eROSITAwill detect new clusters of galaxies and active galactic nuclei, while Russian ART-XC will be busy tracking supermassive black holes. The observatory will be performing eight all-sky surveys for 4 years, and next three years will be dedicated to observations of individual galaxies.

After years of simulations, tests and effort, LightSail 2proved that it is possible to change a spacecrafts orbit using only the power of sunlight. OnJuly 31, the Planetary Society announced that the experimental spacecraft successfully raised its orbit around Earth, demonstrating new revolutionary technology for space exploration in action.

Physicists reached a long-awaited milestone in quantum computing.In October, a team atGooglereported that it had used a quantum computer to perform a calculation that would be practical impossible for even the most sophisticated classical machine. Using a quantum computer called Sycamore, the researchers entangled its 53 qubits into a complex superposition state and then asked the computer to perform an operation similar to random-number generation, it took the machine200 seconds to complete the task. The same computation would take a classical supercomputer 10,000years to complete.

Despite the failure to reach the ISS, Boeing's new Starliner unmanned spacecraft successfullylanded in the New Mexico desert, US on December 22. The spacecraft, built to carry up to seven astronauts, didnt reach the right orbit, so it was returned to Earthas soon as possible. The spacecraft will probably be launched for another test before taking a crew aboard.

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10 Amazing Scientific Discoveries and Achievements in Space Exploration Made in 2019 - Asgardia Space News