SPACE TIMELINE

THROUGHOUT SPACE AND TIME Timeline of space travel exploration Abigail Parker • Staff Reporter

Already in 2020, the Trump administration has established a military branch called the Space Force that prepares for space engagement, making the United States the only nation with an independent space force. As a result, people have named space exploration as the “new frontier” because of the unknown expanse of space; scientists have yet to detect any signs of an “edge” to the universe.

Here is a list of some notable discoveries in the past two decades.

Spirit, the first Mars Exploration Rover, lands on Mars. 2004

2006 NASA’s first mission to Pluto and its moons, New Horizons, launches from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

2007 The Space Age, which started with Sputnik 1, turns 50 years old. Ion-powered probe Dawn launches an eight-year mission to the two largest space rocks in the solar system, the dwarf planet Ceres and the asteroid Vesta.

2008 NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope takes the first visiblelight photograph of a planet circling another star.

2009 NASA scientists find water on the moon and ice water is found on Mars.

2011 NASA’s space shuttle program, Houston, is shut down after its final shuttle mission lands on Earth.

2012 The Hubble Space Telescope captures the farthest photo into the universe.

NASA’s Kepler Telescope discovers 26 alien planets in 11 solar systems.

2013 NASA’s Curiosity Rover discovers signs that ancient Mars could have supported life.

2014 The European Space Agency successfully lands a spacecraft on a comet zooming at nearly 40,000 mph between Mars and Jupiter.

2016 NASA’s Kepler Telescope discovers almost 1,300 alien planets.

2017 For the first time in almost 100 years, Americans witness a total solar eclipse.

For the first time, researchers detect an object in Earth’s solar system that originated from outside of the system.

2018 NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spots Icarus, the farthest normal star ever seen, which lies nine billion light years away.

2019 The first close-up snap of a blackhole as big as our solar system is taken. The blackhole is 53 million lightyears away.