The biggest astronomical findings of the decade

The last decade witnessed a leap in the way of conquering human space with important discoveries such as finding water on the Moon, detecting dark matter .

Decode dark energy

In 2002, the Hubble Space Telescope was upgraded with new devices with the most modern cameras for space research. As a result, Hubble deciphered the presence of a mysterious and popular form of energy, 'dark energy '.

The Hubble Space Telescope has observed new superstars at the farthest distance ever. These explosions occur at a distance of about 10 billion light-years. This discovery has strengthened the cosmology model with dark energy flooding the space. It allows us to understand how the universe expands and changes over time. It was slowly expanding, stopped, and then accelerated again.

Dark energy accounts for up to 70% of the cosmic composition, but humanity also knows so little about them.

By observing new superstars, scientists can measure the expansion of the universe and realize that these stellar explosions happened about 9 billion years ago. They conducted thousands of infrared and visible photographs taken by the Hubble space glass to study the formation of galaxies. In particular, pay special attention to a new superstar happening in a galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major.

Dark energy accounts for 70% of the universe but in fact we know very little about it. So any small trace becomes valuable, providing new evidence to help astronomers understand the nature of dark energy as well as change its intensity over time.

Pluto lost his throne

On July 29, 2005, the team of three astronomers Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz officially announced the discovery of 2003 UB313, the celestial body known as the official name: " Eris dwarf planet ". In the meeting of the International Astronomical Society (IAU) in August 2006, this object was recognized as the " dwarf planet ". On September 13, 2006, IAU officially named the planet Eris.

In Greek mythology, Eris is a discord goddess who caused the Trojan war (IAU chose this name in part because of the controversy surrounding the ranking of newly discovered celestial bodies, and especially the Re-rank Pluto in the August 2006 meeting).

The dwarf planet was previously described by astronomers as the 10th planet of the Solar System, and it has officially joined.

Eris is a celestial body with orbit outside Neptune, belonging to a space called 'Scattered Disc', a telescope point 97.56 AU from the Sun (1AU = 1.49 x 10 ^ 9 km) , the near-daily point is 37.77 AU from the Sun.

The largest dwarf planet, Eris has a mass of about 1.66x10 ^ 22 kg, 2400 km in diameter, the cycle around the Sun about 557 years of Earth. Mike Brown's findings in 2005 changed the face of the solar system. Accordingly, the solar system still has 9 planets, but Pluto is deposed of the planet, replaced by Eris.

Detect dark matter

In the summer of 2006, the first evidence of dark matter was announced by astronomers, although they were still vague about the composition of this " spooky material ". The conclusion is drawn from careful weighing of stars and gases emitted in a fierce, powerful collision and the " most gruesome " among galaxies ever.

Dark matter is still a neat thing for researchers.

The clash occurred between two clusters of galaxies, called the Bullet Cluster (1E 0657-56), causing stars and dark matter of galaxies to separate, while interplanetary air masses they bump into each other and slow down.

Visualizing the proportion of components in the universe, astronomers believe dark matter is 23%, dark energy 73%, hydrogen gas, free helium, stars, neutrinos, solid components and the rest 4%

Observing the Bullet Cluster does not explain what dark matter is, but they provide a pretty solid trace, the researchers said.

Mars has water

In 2006, after 10 years of searching, NASA's space probe (Mars Global Surveyor-MGS) sent to the center of the ground images of sediment on two 1km long creeks in the southern half. of Mars. Two years later (2008), NASA's Mars Mars probe landed on the red planet, confirming the presence of water and finding organic compounds.

In the first exploration, the Phoenix had 'tasted' water on Mars by melting ice containing soil in a heat experiment. This proves that water actually exists on the Red planet. This discovery not only confirms the presence of water on the Red planet but also helps scientists hope to find some types of bacteria that exist in the ice here.

NASA's Mars probe sent evidence of the existence of water on the moon, hypothesizing the existence of life.

By 2010, through the computer simulation recovery results, scientists found that: 3.5 billion years ago, 36% of the Martian surface was covered by the sea, the area covered by the equivalent of Dai Today's Atlantic Ocean, the water capacity is equal to 1/10 of the Earth's water.

The US National Aeronautics Agency plans to launch a new $ 458 million Mars exploration plan in 2013, in hopes of finding more clues to prove that there was water on Mars. .

Locating foreign planets with life

Astronomers have discovered evidence of planets that can live like Earth (exoplanets) since the early 1990s, but not directly. But in 2000 astronomers discovered the existence of a planet orbiting a star, like the relationship between the Sun and the Earth. So far, they have detected nearly 400 extrasolar planets.

In 2008, by using the Hubble space telescope, Keck and Gemini ground telescopes in Hawaii, astronomers were able to observe extrasolar planets orbiting distant stars. The two observatories took pictures of the mysterious world on the outer planets.

Searching for exoplanets is a hope to search for creatures living in a different human universe.

By infrared exploration, Keck observatory discovered three extrasolar planets orbiting a star symbol HR 8799, 150 light-years from Earth. Hubble positioned a massive alien planet orbiting around Formalhaut, 25 light-years from Earth.

Astronomical findings pose a big question: how much longer, we will discover worlds like Earth, with societies that are also looking for life in the vast universe.