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If you watched the total solar eclipse or caught a glimpse of the colorful auroras you participated in some of 2024's biggest space stories. Our Head Astronomer, Justin Bartel, is here to share his full list of SUNsational space stories.

#5 Small Steps for Human Spaceflight

After several delays, this was the year that the Starliner spacecraft finally carried astronauts to the International Space Station. But lingering problems with Starliner led to the decision to send the capsule home without its passengers. Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are staying on the ISS until early 2025, when they’ll catch a ride home in a Dragon spacecraft.

On another note, two members of the private Polaris Dawn crew completed the first commercial extravehicular activity or spacewalk. The EVA was brief, but like the first, short spacewalks of the 1960s, it’s a step toward bigger things in the future.

Many new developments in human spaceflight are being driven by commercial interests, but this sort of innovation doesn’t guarantee immediate success.

#4 Turning Lunar Exploration on its Head

The pace of robotic exploration of the Moon is picking up. In January, Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, suffered a partial engine failure shortly before its autonomous landing, causing the spacecraft to tip over and land on its ‘nose’.

In February, on the commercial IM-1 Nova-C lander, a laser altimeter critical to the landing sequence wasn’t properly activated prior to launch. An experimental NASA system was used instead, but the spacecraft came in too fast, broke one of its landing legs, and tipped over.

SLIM and IM-1 gave engineers plenty of insight for future missions.

Over the summer, China also completed a first-of-its-kind sample return mission from the Moon’s farside. Previous samples--like rocks picked up by Apollo astronauts--came from the nearside. The new farside samples are surprisingly young, suggesting that part of the Moon was molten much longer than originally thought.

While we wait for humans to visit its surface again, robots are putting new spins on how we explore the Moon.

#3 Earth’s Extra Moon(s)

Thanks to a nearby asteroid, Earth had a temporary bonus moon … and that’s not all.

One of the most attention-grabbing asteroids was 2024 PT5. In late September, it wandered close enough to Earth to be loosely captured by our planet, becoming what can be called a “minimoon”. This rendezvous didn’t last, and by the end of November, 2024 PT5 escaped and continued on its independent orbit around the Sun.

Other asteroids appear to loop slowly around our planet as they orbit the Sun, earning them the title of “quasi-moon”. This year, astronomers may have tracked one of them, Kamo’oalewa, to a surprising source. Some 4 million years ago, another asteroid hit the Moon, creating the Giordano Bruno crater and throwing debris into space. Based on its appearance and orbit, Kamo’oalewa may be one of the fragments jettisoned by this collision. And there’s a chance that 2024 PT5 came from a lunar impact too!

#2 The Race to Jupiter’s Moons

The European JUICE spacecraft is on its way to study the moons Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede, but it needs a little help to get to Jupiter. It’s not unusual for spacecraft to fly by a planet for a gravity assist, but in August, JUICE did something new, flying by both the Moon and Earth during the same encounter to borrow a little momentum from both worlds. Jupiter is still a distant goal, and three more gravity assists will be needed before JUICE arrives in 2031.

The biggest launch of the year was also aimed at Jupiter’s moons. On October 14th, the Europa Clipper spacecraft set off from Kennedy Space Center. It’s the largest interplanetary spacecraft NASA has ever developed, and with the help of a speedy Falcon Heavy launch and two gravity assists, it will reach Jupiter in early 2030. Once in orbit, Clipper will fly by Europa dozens of times to study the properties of the moon’s suspected interior ocean, hoping to determine whether it might be habitable.

#1 All Eyes on the Sun

It’s always been a key figure in our lives, but this year, the only star in our solar system truly took center stage.

In April, a much-anticipated total solar eclipse was seen across a narrow swath of North America. Due to the number of large cities in the path of totality, and the number of people who traveled into the path, it’s possible that this was the most-watched solar eclipse in history.

Coordinated observations along the path of totality helped astronomers track changes in the Sun’s corona over the course of a few hours, and amateur radio operators were able to collect data showing how the Earth’s ionosphere changed during the eclipse.

The Sun caused another type of sky show this year as massive flares on its surface released streams of charged particles, triggering strong auroras on Earth. These displays were visible much farther south than usual, including in large parts of the continental United States. The solar activity that causes auroras ebbs and flows every 11 years, and in 2024 the Sun officially reached the peak of this cycle.

Despite all of the amazing things that happened in space science and exploration this year, nothing could hold a candle to the Sun’s activity in 2024.