24 | New Scientist | 21/28 December 2019

A

S THE 50th anniversary of the first

human on the moon, and Neil

Armstrong’s “one giant leap”, 2019 was

always going to be an important year for the

moon. It turned out to be even bigger than

expected – and perhaps the start of a new

era of exploration of our natural satellite.

The year started with China making

history by putting the first lunar lander

on the moon’s far side. On 3 January, the

Chang’e 4 lander successfully touched

down, providing the first glimpses we

have had from the surface there. It even

brought a small biosphere containing

cotton seeds, which sprouted there

before being plunged into darkness.

These plants weren’t the moon’s only

victims. Two small landers crashed on the

surface: Israeli start-up SpaceIL’s Beresheet

in April and India’s Vikram in September.

The nations narrowly missed out on

becoming the fourth country to land on

the moon after the Soviet Union, the US

and China. Beresheet would have also been

the first privately funded lander to do so.

Review of the year

Trends of 2019

Reaching for

the moon

once more

Arrokoth is the

most distant

space rock

we have ever

visited, some

6.6 billion

kilometres

away. It is

shaped a bit

like a flattened

snowman

Proxima Centauri b

When the decade began, we knew

of about 450 planets beyond our

solar system. Now, that number has

bloomed to more than 4000.

Most significant of all was the discovery

of Proxima Centauri b in 2016, the

closest known exoplanet, at a distance

of 4.2 light years from Earth.

Five decades after Apollo 11, 2019 was the

year we got serious about walking on the

lunar surface again, writes Leah Crane

08

07

Quantum supremacy

Efforts to develop quantum computers

gradually ramped up this decade,

culminating with Google’s

announcement of quantum supremacy

in 2019. The firm developed the

first quantum computer capable of

performing a calculation that no classical

supercomputer on Earth can match.