Gallery: All the Year's Kickbutt Science From Space
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*Pluto.* As a space object, Pluto pretty much has everything going for it. Underdog status? Check. Well-nigh unreachable position in the solar system? Check. Angry planetary scientists arguing over a pointless but nevertheless highly publicized semantic choice? Check. So when it came time for New Horizons to finally pass the (dwarf) planet this year, of course people flipped out. On July 14, the little spacecraft made its [closest approach](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/plutos-would-be-ice-volcanoes-get-a-close-look/) to the icy rock, furiously snapping photos that it’s still sending back to Earth (and will for months to come). Those snapshots revealed a world that’s more complex than NASA’s planetary scientists could have hoped—an icy landscape with towering mountains, vast, heart-shaped plains, and hints of some remarkably active geology. Oh, and another shocker: It’s not blue.
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*Charon.* In all the hype around Pluto, let’s not forget that Charon—Pluto’s co-orbiting moon, only half the size of the dwarf planet—got plenty of attention from New Horizons too. The icy rock has plenty of [interesting geology](https://www.wired.com/2015/10/new-pics-show-charon-brightest-beautiful/) of its own, notably: ICE VOLCANOES! It also has a dark spot, colloquially called “Mordor” (because we’re dealing with NASA nerds here), that could be made of frozen gases thrown off from Pluto’s surface. Basically, Charon deserves just as much attention as Pluto. Hopefully, people will have learned their lesson by the time New Horizons hits its next target, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69.
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*Space mining.* In November, President Obama [signed a bill into law](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/congress-says-yes-to-space-mining-no-to-rocket-regulations/) that will functionally allow space mining. If a US-licensed company like Planetary Resources goes to an asteroid and collects materials there, the law says that they can own those materials. Now, that might not strictly be legal in the international sense, even though the law has careful language saying that simply mining a celestial body doesn’t mean that a country or company is laying claim to the whole darn place. But as more groups find it possible to go on profiteering expeditions to space, that means the concept of international ownership will get more complicated. Hopefully, the summer meeting of the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space will offer some answers.
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*NASA space robots and Mars.* After its space robot Valkyrie failed to qualify for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, NASA sent two of the [humanoid hulks](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/nasa-wants-to-make-a-c-3po-to-help-colonize-mars-but-that-may-not-be-a-super-idea/) to robotics teams at two universities. The goal, it seems, is to help the robot get better at some of the basics—you know, things like walking and balancing—before it can assist humans on future missions. In the future, NASA may want to use humanoid robots to help set up a Mars colony. Speaking of which, this year marked [peak Mars colonization hype](https://www.wired.com/2015/09/setis-top-astrobiologist-plan-find-life-mars/), with the release of Matt Damon-helmed *The Martian*. NASA’s impeccably organized social media team [worked closely with the movie’s team](https://www.wired.com/2015/07/martians-andy-weir-buddy-buddy-nasa/), making sure that everyone got the message: Fund NASA, and one day, you too may end up like Mark Watney (except hopefully not almost-dead and abandoned on a dusty red planet.)
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*Commercial space flight wars.* Things are getting serious in the war to win commercial space flight. Congress has been relying on Russian and Japanese missions to get its astronauts to the International Space Station for years, and now the US thinks it’s time to take matters into its own hands. But the process to award lucrative NASA launch contracts is tough given American rocket companies’ recent track records. In 2014, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded on an ISS resupply launch, followed by a similar failure of a SpaceX launch in 2015. Now SpaceX, Orbital ATK, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, and Sierra Nevada are fighting it out for the future of space flight.
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*Mars water.* Something that would help if humans ever really did end up colonizing Mars: water. This year marked a number of discoveries about the red planet’s H~2~O, including beautiful images that indirectly prove that [liquid water does flow on Mars](https://www.wired.com/2015/09/nasa-salty-liquid-water-on-mars/) every year around the same time (the “tear stains” on the sides of those mountains are the salty residues left behind when water flows down their surfaces.) But scientists still don’t know where the water is coming from, or how much of it there is. Probably not enough to sustain human life, but results from [Mars orbiter MAVEN](https://www.wired.com/2015/11/mars-newest-satellite-reveals-clues-to-its-watery-past/) show that might once have been possible: The early Martian environment likely contained lots of liquid water and a thicker atmosphere.
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*Cassini flys by Enceladus for the last time.* Since 2004, the Cassini orbiter has been orbiting Saturn, taking measurements and images of the ringed planet and its many moons. The spacecraft still has plenty of time left on its clock (its mission ends in September 2017), but this year was full of discoveries about Enceladus, a moon characterized by geysers that eject mysterious plumes of icy material that feeds Saturn’s rings. In October, the probe [flew right through those plumes](https://www.wired.com/2015/10/prepare-for-an-awesome-enceladus-flyby/), collecting data about their composition, and on December 17, it made its final pass by Enceladus. That chapter of its journey, at least, is over.
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*Ridiculous experiments on the ISS.* On New Years’ Day this year, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly will have been on board the International Space Station for 280 days—and he’ll still have 62 to go. Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are both part of an experiment called “Year in Space” (yes, 280 and 62 don’t add up to quite a year—but it’s close enough, don’t you think?). In their time aboard the ISS, the pair have worked on a number of important projects, including Kelly’s first spacewalk and some plant experiments that could help humans understand how to manage agriculture on off-Earth colonies. But, uh, they’re having some fun too. If you had 342 days to kill, you’d probably start messing around with [fizzy water bubbles in microgravity](https://www.wired.com/2015/07/happens-send-4k-camera-space/), too.
STUART C. WILSON/GETTY IMAGES09Yuri Milner And Stephen Hawking Host Press Conference On The Breakthrough Life In The Universe Initiatives
*Geoff Marcy.* The astrophysics community exploded in October when BuzzFeed reported that celebrated exoplanet researcher [Geoff Marcy had violated sexual harassment policies](https://www.wired.com/2015/10/the-year-we-really-started-caring-about-sexism-in-science/) at the University of California, Berkeley for decades. In the wake of the report, Marcy resigned from his job at Berkeley, as well as his position as principal investigator of the $100 million Breakthrough Listen project. It was just one of several examples this year of how sexual harassment and gender discrimination continues within science. But the reaction—from the university itself, as well as a larger community of scientists and followers online—shows that the tides may be turning.
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*Rosetta.*When the Philae craft made its bumpy landing on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014, scientists weren’t sure whether they’d ever hear anything from it again. The lander seemed to have settled in a shaded hole on the rock’s surface, where its solar panels couldn’t collect enough light to recharge. But in June, [the intrepid explorer came back to life](https://www.wired.com/2015/06/philae-update/), sending information to its parent spacecraft Rosetta, in orbit around the comet. Information from Philae and Rosetta are painting a detailed picture of the comet, including sinkholes, dinosaur eggs, and its organic composition.
