Now that we're writing about 2024, it's time to take a look back at the past year, which was full of curiosities, milestones and exciting scientific and astronomical discoveries – just think of India's moon landing, for example. But the disaster of OceanGate's Titan submarine also received a lot of attention. We've now selected some of this news, and we hope there will be many innovations and discoveries this year too, whether it's about healing or space research.
Global warming, UFOs, Nobel Prize-winning rain
One of the most important scientific news of 2023 is undoubtedly the winning of the Nobel Prize by Katalin Karikó and Ferenc Krausz, as the two Hungarian scientists received the most prestigious award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences last October. Katalin Karikó has made history with this achievement, as she is the first Hungarian woman to receive this honor for inventing a vaccine based on messenger RNA (mRNA). Ferenc Krauss received the Nobel Prize for his achievements in the field of physics.
Last year was warmer than ever. Not since 1880 has it been as warm on Earth as it was in July 2023, which is becoming more and more worrying. El Niño has also returned and we will really feel its effects in 2024. Due to global warming, The weather is becoming more extreme, and in addition to extreme heat, we can experience sudden severe storms.
There's never a year when aliens aren't discussed, but in 2023, an independent investigative committee of 16 scientists spent nine months investigating reports of numerous unidentified flying objects (UAPs) and wrote a lengthy report. It turns out that they were able to explain most of the ads, but there were some that couldn't, because they didn't have enough data or the recording wasn't very good quality, which left a lot of people disappointed.
The Loch Ness Monster can't be left out of our science news either. The legendary monster has been caught on camera several times, but there is still no evidence that such an animal lives in the famous lake. Despite this, a large-scale monster hunting mission was launched last year, during which nothing was found, of course, but many people still believe in the legend.
Lunar residence, solar flares, asteroid Bennu
In space, especially on the Moon, there was great activity in 2023. After 50 years, Russia decided to launch its lunar program, within the framework of which it launched the Luna-25 lander in August, which collided with the Moon a few days later. On the other hand, India was patient and its lunar mission called Chandrayaan-3, which was launched in August, ended successfully and its lander landed on the surface of the celestial body. Thus, the country entered history, as it was the fourth country in the world to reach the surface and the first country to land on the South Pole of the Moon.
In 2024, various lunar missions will likely continue, as will SpaceX's Starship project, which wants to raise the world's largest spacecraft to transport passengers to the Moon in the future. They attempted to lift the spacecraft aloft in April, but after launch, the two stages could not be separated, leaving it uncontrollable and had to be blown up. In the fall, the company tried again with a test flight, which was more successful, but the spacecraft exploded again.
We witnessed an amazing historical event in 2023 when NASA's OSIRIS-REx capsule returned to Earth with samples from the asteroid Bennu. The probe traveled in deep space for three years before returning. Since then, scientists have discovered a lot about the asteroid, but they have not been able to access the entire sample, because they could not remove two of the screws, and they are still working on it. In addition to carbon compounds, the researchers also found water compounds and organic compounds in Bennu's sample.
The Sun is approaching the peak of its 11-year cycle, making solar flares more frequent and intense. Such solar flares cause geomagnetic storms on Earth, which have no effect on our health, but on our GPS and radios. In addition to all this, geomagnetic storms also cause stunning aurora borealis. At the beginning of November, it was one of the most spectacular events, as beautiful purple lights could be seen in several places across the country.
In 2023, we came up with a lot of interesting articles from the scientific world and we will not stop in 2024 either, we will try to bring you the most interesting or even the strangest news.
