A comet.

The year 2021 saw humanity outdo itself by being braver and venturing further than we ever have. From digging deeper into our neighbouring worlds and unraveling the mysteries of far-away cosmic entities, to touching stars and making space-travel more accessiblethis year had it all.

Now, as we prepare ourselves for some more exciting endeavours slated for 2022, lets take a quick look at the headlines that reigned the field of space through 2021.

Listed below are the top developments from space research and exploration from the last 12 months.

Richard Branson and team during the spaceflight.

2021 marked the beginning of commercial space flights, a dream cradled by Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk.

In July 2021, Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic kick-started the space tourism league, thus becoming the first billionaire to do so. Among five passengers onboard mission Unity22, the spotlight was on Sirisha Bandla, who became just the fourth person of Indian origin to fly into spaceafter Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawala, and Sunita Williams.

Jeff Bezos Blue Origin followed suit and ventured into space to fly beyond the Karman linethe internationally recognised boundary of space. Using its New Shepard rocket, Jeffs younger brother Mark Bezos, along with Wally Funk, an 82-year-old female aviator and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old physics student, were taken to space for an 11-minute spaceflight.

Last but not the least was tech-icon Elon Musks SpaceX Inspiration4 mission. Launched in September, it took four civilians on a three-day space tripa lot longer than the few weightless minutes facilitated by the Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. Individuals from different backgrounds and realms of life participated in this mission, representing the values of hope, generosity, leadership and prosperity.

These missions heralded a new era where space travel edged slightly closer to the reaches of the public. However, at this nascent stage, space tourism still remains an extravagantly costly affair.

This set of images shows parts of the robotic arm on NASAs Perseverance rover flexing and turning during its first checkout after landing on Mars.

In February 2021, three landmark robotic explorer missionsPerseverance by the United States, Tianwen-1 by China, and Hope by the United Arab Emiratesarrived on Mars to dig-out past and present mysteries surrounding our neighbouring world.

The UAEs Hope orbiter, designed to study the planets thin atmosphere, has an ambitious goal of creating the first-ever global map of the Martian atmosphere. Further, Chinas Tianwen-1 will focus on detecting underground deposits of water and ice, while also collecting samples of soil and rocks, which will arrive on Earth through its upcoming missions by 2030.

As for NASAs Perseverance, the mission has four set goals, with a top priority of determining if life ever existed on Mars. And thus far, it has already achieved the impressive feat of flying a helicopter named Ingenuity in the Martian atmosphere for the first time ever. In September, the Perseverance rover also reached a historical milestone by collecting the first-ever sample from a Martian rock in the Jezero Crater. The samples could unravel more of the Red Planets past mysteries once brought back to Earth.

The black holes extreme gravity alters the paths of light coming from different parts of the disk, producing the warped image.

Black holes are the most sought-after mysteries of space, with even tiny observations or clues about them creating a huge buzz! And this year, scientists marked a lot of firsts in learning about these cosmic entities.

In March, scientists revealed the presence of magnetic fields around a black hole. This was done by viewing the black hole image compiled by the Event Horizon Telescope. This finding is important in solving the mystery behind how black holes create powerful jets, which has so far been hard to crack.

Another significant first was achieved by scientists when they detected light behind a black holethe part that is usually covered by its shadow. These remarkable findings proved yet another part of Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity, by enabling scientists to actually see it in action.

Apart from these, astronomers also documented the very first merger of two massive black holes with neutron stars. As these gigantic celestial entities collided, the volatile event triggered ripples across the universe, some of which were also felt by our planet.

Illustration of NASAs DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agencys (ASI) LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos binary system.

2021 could, in a way, be summed-up as a year where we sent mixed signals to asteroidson one hand, we launched missions to visit them and understand them better; on the other, we initiated projects to break them to pieces!

In October, NASA launched its maiden mission named Lucy to study rocks located in the asteroid belt as well as the ones that orbit alongside Jupiter, viz. the Trojan asteroids. Over the course of this 12-year journey, Lucy could revolutionise our knowledge of planetary origins and the formation of the solar system.

But while asteroids are reservoirs of information about the early universe, they also pose a threat to our planet. To address this, NASA and SpaceX also launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) in November.

A planetary defense-driven test of technologies designed to prevent a hazardous asteroid from colliding with Earth, DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space.

Artist impression of spacecraft entering Sun.

While this year marked the beginning of several landmark missions, it also saw some previous missions make breakthrough findings.

To begin with, the 1977-launched Voyager 1, which has ventured into the vast, dark interstellar space where no man-made object has ever been, has already revealed many secrets of the universe. In 2021, it added another feather to its hat by detecting a faint plasma hum in interstellar space. Through this discovery, scientists will be able to conduct the very first measurements of the density of material in interstellar space.

NASA ended the year on a high as well, as for the first time in human history, a spacecraft touched the super hostile environment of our star: the magnificent Sun. This historic feat belongs to the Parker Solar Probe, and the awaited results from this mission will help us understand the Sun's evolution and its overall impacts on our solar system.

The last month of 2021 brought some extra excitement for space enthusiasts with the arrival of Comet Leonard. Dubbed as the "once in a lifetime" comet, Leonard came closest to Earth on December 12a feat it wont repeat for the next 35,000 years!

JWST's golden mirror.

After decades of work put in by an incredible army of astronomers and engineers, the world is finally set to witness the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. After several delays, the liftoff of this powerhouse space observatoryscheduled for December 25will be the last and most-awaited launch of 2021.

Scientists from NASA, ESA and CSA have all contributed to the creation of this infrared-seeing telescope, which will hunt for exoplanets and their various characteristics, decode black holes, peer back into the early years of the universe, and more!

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2021 Re-Run: Top Space Discoveries and Missions from a Venturesome Year | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com - The...