The top science stories of 2022
NASA nudges an asteroid, weird things emerge from water, and scientists tackle a new epidemic.
The Cartwheel galaxy (right) was formed as the result of a high-speed collision about 400 million years ago. This composite image brings together observations from JWST's infrared instruments. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
As of 2022, you share this planet with 8 billion people (and about 20 quadrillion ants).
It’s not just population growth that made this year remarkable. From January to December, scientists have launched revolutionary space missions, wrangled new viral outbreaks, discovered old DNA, and even taken a step towards harnessing nuclear fusion. Explore the science that made headlines throughout 2022.
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Tonga volcano eruption
Just off the island nation of Tonga in the South Pacific, a mostly underwater volcano called Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai quite literally rocked the world when it erupted on January 15.
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai’s eruption was one of the most powerful on record—hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, NASA reported, and the largest explosion of any kind in the last 140 years. Its roar was heard nearly 6,000 miles away in Alaska, and the eruption triggered tsunamis that reached Tonga, nearby Fiji, and far-off locations like Japan, Russia, Peru, and the United States. The volcano’s unique position may help explain why this particular eruption created such a violent shockwave. But the full implications of the explosion for future volcanic events are still being studied.
Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance is found after 106 years
In December 1914, British explorer Ernest Shackleton led a crew of 27 men aboard two ships, Endurance and Aurora, on an expedition to Antarctica. The goal was to complete the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. But in January 1915, the Endurance became trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea before reaching land.
For nine months, Shackleton and his crew tried to break the ship free. But their efforts were unsuccessful, and Endurance was gradually crushed by the shifting ice. In October 1915, Shackleton ordered his crew to abandon the ship, and a month later Endurance slipped beneath the surface, not to be seen again. Until this year.
A distant view of the Endurance trapped in an ice floe. Image Credit: James Francis Hurley via National Maritime Museum, Wikimedia Commons
On February 5, an expedition called Endurance22 set off from Cape Town, South Africa, in search of Shackleton’s long-lost ship. And on March 5, some 106 years after it was lost, Endurance was found. Using sonar, the team spotted the sunken ship just four miles south of where the original captain, Frank Worsley, had said it was in 1915, NPR reported. Shockingly well-preserved, Endurance had “hardly anything living on it,” and some of its original paint still intact, Endurance22 expedition leader John Shears told NPR. “It’s as if it sank only yesterday,” Shears said. The Endurance will stay in the Weddell Sea, protected as a historical site under the Antarctic Treaty.
First images from James Webb Space Telescope
Of NASA's many successful endeavors this year, the images taken by the agency's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are perhaps the most awe-inspiring (Have you seen JWST's image of Neptune's rings? Tell me that doesn’t leave you awestruck.)
JWST launched at the end of 2021 and gradually unfolded, aligning 18 segments of its massive, gilded mirror before getting to work. A month after its launch, the telescope was already a million miles from Earth. And in July, NASA began to unveil stunning images of stars and faraway nebulas in greater clarity than its predecessor, Hubble. JWST has also managed to capture galaxies never before seen by scientists, breaking the record for the most distant galaxy ever detected.
"Cosmic Cliffs" in the Carina Nebula, as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
In the coming years, the telescope's data will help scientists understand the evolution of stars and planets, since its infrared instruments can peer through dense dust clouds where star and planet formation begins. "The great thing, really, is that this is just the beginning," Stefanie Milam, deputy project scientist on JWST, told NOVA. "We'll be able to go much, much deeper, and this telescope is going to do what we designed it to do."
Mpox (monkeypox) outbreak
Mpox, previously referred to as monkeypox, emerged in the U.S. and several other countries where it is not endemic in May. Although the disease—which presents as a painful rash, followed by flu-like symptoms—was first identified in humans in 1970, mpox was fairly unknown to the American public before this year's outbreak. Mpox spread quickly and peaked in early August, with hundreds of cases being reported per day. Around that time, the Department of Health and Human Services declared the disease a public health emergency and authorized the emergency use of mpox vaccines.
Data suggest that mpox transmission most often occurs through sexual activity or contact with open wounds or mucous membranes, like the eyes and mouth. While anyone can transmit the disease, there was a prevalence in cases among men who have sex with men (MSM). Many public health campaigns encouraged MSM in particular to get vaccinated, and as of this month, 1.1 million people have been vaccinated against mpox in the U.S.
By late September 2022, NPR reported that New York City, San Francisco, Houston, and Chicago—all cities with high rates of infection—had begun to see a decline in cases, though not particularly correlated with vaccination rates. The CDC announced in a November report a highly confident assessment that “the overall incidence of monkeypox in the United States is declining.” And in December, the Department of Health and Human Services announced mpox will not be renewed as a public health emergency in 2023.
DART Mission deflects an asteroid
In 2021, NASA launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft on a mission to test whether scientists could possibly deflect asteroids at risk of colliding with Earth.
In the first-ever “full scale planetary defense test,” the DART spacecraft set out to knock Dimorphos—a 525-foot asteroid “moonlet” that circles a larger asteroid called Didymos—off track. The spacecraft slammed into its target in September 2022, but it wasn’t until October that scientists determined that the DART mission was, in fact, a smashing success. The spacecraft’s impact nudged the moon closer to Didymos, shortening its nearly 12-hour orbital period by 32 minutes, Science reported. While neither Didymos nor Dimorphos pose any risk to Earth, DART is proof that if Earth were to be threatened by an asteroid, humans may actually be able to something about it.
Dropping water levels reveal dinosaur tracks, Nazi warships, human remains and more
The blistering summer of 2022 saw drought from Asia to Europe to North America. And while people may have anticipated a water shortage, few could predict what would be revealed when water levels dropped.
Spotting dinosaur tracks in Texas’ Dinosaur State Valley Park may not seem surprising. But scientists and park rangers were fascinated to find sets of tracks usually obscured by water suddenly exposed when the park’s Paluxy River dried up in August. The footprints, estimated to be 113 million years old, were left deep in the sediment by the carnivorous Acrocanthosaurus, a two-legged dinosaur that weighed up to 7 tons and stood around 15 feet tall.
Just 1,200 miles away in Nevada, Lake Mead revealed its own hidden secrets. Along with long-sunken boats, a total of six sets of human remains—one of which was discovered inside a barrel—were found as the lake’s levels dropped. This year, Lake Mead hit its lowest levels since 1937, continuing a 22-year long downward trend, NASA reports. “There’s no telling what we’ll find in Lake Mead,” former Las Vegas mayor and defense attorney Oscar Goodman said in May. “It’s not a bad place to dump a body,” he added, according to PBS NewsHour.
A once-submerged speedboat juts out from the dry lakebed of Lake Mead in June 2022. Image Credit: James Marvin Phelps, Flickr
Regional drought and a heatwave in southwestern China led to a rapid water level drop in the country’s massive Yangtze River, revealing a small island and three previously submerged Buddhist statues. The statues are thought to be 600 years old. While the artifacts are exciting, this historic drought—and those expected in summers to come—threatens the livelihood of some 400 million people who depend on the Yangtze River for water.
But the largest, and perhaps the most dangerous, of these drought discoveries was in Europe. This summer, the Danube River was at its lowest levels in almost a century. Out from the shrinking waters along eastern Serbia emerged dozens of sunken German WWII ships, each covered in tons of ammunition and explosives. The explosives on the ships pose a major ecological and safety risk to the fishing and coal shipping industries operating within the Danube, Reuters reported.
This summer’s drought, and the strange items it brought to light, foreshadow a larger problem to come with climate change. And in colder climes, melting permafrost is also revealing long-unseen entities, though not all of them are as exciting as dinosaur tracks.
Artemis 1 kicks off a new lunar program
This year, NASA's much-anticipated Artemis I mission finally took off. Following months of postponements, fuel leaks, and hurricanes, NASA launched the world's most powerful rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on November 16. Artemis I is the first mission in the Artemis program, which aims to put a crew on the Moon. The inaugural mission, which was uncrewed, was intended to test the massive SLS rocket and the Orion crew capsule.
Once launched, Orion spent 25.5 days zooming well past the Moon and looping back to Earth. The spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11. Now begins NASA's post-flight analysis, which will help reveal just what’s possible in this new chapter of space exploration.
Oldest DNA ever found
Last but not least came a breakthrough just before the end of year. On December 7, scientists announced the remarkable discovery of the oldest DNA to date. The DNA, retrieved from the sediment cores at the northern edge of Greenland, is a whopping 2 million years old. It reveals stunning information about the plants and animals that once inhabited the Arctic, which was once a lush, green landscape.
The finding, experts say, could not only revolutionize paleontology, opening new windows onto ancient worlds, but also help us better understand how species adapted to a warming world in the past. “It's as though we really do have a time machine in a way that we never expected,” said Ross MacPhee, senior curator at the American Museum of Natural History.
OLDEST DNA EVER FOUND REVEALS SECRETS OF THE ANCIENT ARCTIC:
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