This was the decade of the first face transplant, the first extinct species brought back from the dead, and printable human tissue; a decade that brought us closer to synthetic life forms and the invisibility cloak. But we've whittled it down to ten of the decade's biggest science stories, with discoveries, advances, and topics that are sure to change our lives in the next ten years.

It's Full of Planets: This was a big decade for planets, and not just because Pluto got a downgrade. In 2005, astronomers discovered Eris, a dwarf planet larger Pluto (as well as smaller dwarf planets Haumea and Makemake). Eris' discovery prompted the International Astronomical Union to actually define the term planet, leading to Pluto's demotion to dwarf planet. But the discovery of Eris after all this time suggests there is still a lot to learn about our solar system.

We also got our first direct look at exoplanets, worlds outside our solar system, thanks to the Hubble Telescope. In 2008, astronomers at the Keck and Gemini captured the first images of planets orbiting distant stars. And the planetary discoveries just keep getting more exciting; just this week, astronomers announced that they had observed a super-Earth that might be made largely of liquid water.

Water, Water Everywhere: The world watched on as the Phoenix Lander dug through the Martian terrain for signs of water on the Red Planet. In the summer of 2008, NASA announced it had found definitive proof of water ice on Mars. More recently, scientists discovered that large deposits of water ice exist beneath the planet's surface. This fall, the moon became the center of our watery attention when astronomers found evidence of water throughout the moon's surface. Although the supervillainous plot to bomb the moon didn't seem as initially impressive as we had hoped, the probe did confirm researchers' suspicions that the moon does, in fact, contain a significant amount of frozen water. These discoveries not only reveal more about our solar system, they indicate that, should humans try to colonize Mars or the moon, there will be resources to make survival a little easier.

Shaking Up the Human Family Tree: Humanity got a new great-great-grandmother (or perhaps she's our great-great-great-aunt) in Ardi, a fossilized hominid skeleton found in Ethiopia. Granted, Ardipithecus ramidus was discovered in 1992, but it wasn't until 2009 that she was revealed as a significant addition to our family tree. Although there's technically no "missing link" because humans didn't evolve from chimpanzees, Ardi is, so far, our closest link to chimps, and brings us closer to the common human-chimp ancestor than ever before. Analysis of Ardi's skeleton and probably anatomy reveals just how unlike either chimps that common ancestor is bound to be. One of the Ardi researchers even quipped that when we find that common ancestor, it might look less like we evolved from a chimp-like creature and more like chimps evolved from creatures more like us.

The Book of Life Recorded: Our understanding of human genetics reached a new milestone with the mapping of the human genome. The Human Genome Project announced a rough draft of the human genome in 2000, followed by a more complete version in 2003; the sequence of the last chromosome was published in 2006. Though the genome hasn't been 100 percent mapped, the Human Genome Project has completed its mapping goals. We still have to interpret the sequences we have recorded, but hopefully as we translate the book of our genetic lives, we will get a better understand of how our genes interact and improve our treatment of genetic diseases. Plus, the project has paved the way for sequencing other critters and plants, and, just this week, the lung cancer and melanoma genomes were sequenced.

Changing Your Genes: The promises of genetic engineering have really begun to bear fruit in the last few years, in ways far beyond Alba, the glowing transgenic bunny that grabbed headlines in 2000. In 1999, an 18-year-old with a, inherited liver disease died during a gene therapy trial, after suffering an unanticipated immune reaction to a viral vector. But in more recent years, gene therapy and genetic engineering have shown their promise. In 2000, scientists reported the first gene therapy success, having provided a patient with severe combine immunodeficiency (commonly known as "Bubble Boy" syndrome), though SCID gene therapy treatments were halted when patients developed leukemia. This year, gene therapy successfully treated children with a congenital form of blindness, giving them the ability to see for the first time in their lives. Meanwhile, genetic engineering experiments on animals have cured color blindness in monkeys, created super-strong monkeys, created drug-producing rats, and enabled animals to pass their altered genes to their offspring.

Stem Cells Grow Up: Embryonic stem cells have been a source of contention for years, but in 2007, Shinya Yamanaka helped sidestep that issue when he found a way to reprogram adult skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. Stem cells themselves have continued to aid important medical advances. In 2008, researchers generated motor neurons from elderly patients with ALS, an advance that could help researchers better understand the disease. A newly released study has suggested that a mini stem cell transplant could reverse sickle cell disease, and stem cell research has lead to advances in HIV research and the treatment of heart disease.

Climate Change Takes Center Stage: One of the biggest science stories of the decade has been less about scientific advances than about how the public responds to scientific research. Reports that the glaciers are melting faster than expected, a decade of record warmth, and Al Gore's Nobel Prize have all been part of the conversation on climate change and to what extent humans are responsible.

Commercial Spacecrafts Prepare to Take Flight: Amidst NASA budget cuts, commercial spaceflight has come to the forefront. The Ansari X Prize, first offered in 1996 for the first private enterprise that could fly a three-passenger vehicle 100 kilopmeters into space twice in one week. In 2004, the prize was finally won by Mojave Aerospace Ventures' SpaceShipOne. That same year, Virgin Galactic was founded to further space tourism. The company recently unveiled SpaceShipTwo, the first commercial spacecraft. 2004 also saw the certification of the Mojave Air and Space Port, the first licensed facility for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft in the US. In anticipation of the spaceflight business, one company claims it's readying a space hotel.

Our Cyborg Present: In the last decade, humans and machines have gotten closer than ever. We have machines that can read our memories, computers that let us type with our brains, and robotic arms controlled by monkey minds. Perhaps the most impressive cyborg advances have come in the last few months, with researchers hooking amputees up to robotic arms that not only respond to electrical signals from the human brain, but also provide tactile feedback.

The LHC Comes Online: The Large Hadron Collider has just begun colliding proton beams, but its construction represents one of the most ambitious scientific undertakings ever. The immense particle accelerator will hopefully give us first-hand observations of aspects of the universe that have been, thus far, the realm of theoretical physics. Despite fears from doomsayers that the LHC would destroy the world and a series of mishaps that led to claims that the device was being sabotaged from the future, the LHC came online this year and quickly got to smashing protons at record-breaking speeds.

In October NASA said they would need $3 billion more per year to go forward with meaningful human space exploration, i.e. not just sending more robots up. For a while there were rumors going around that Washington was going to severely scale back the program's budget, but now according to Washington insider John Logsdon, "there will be more money."

He's also saying that Obama doesn't want to be that president who cuts a future oriented program. So he'll keep it alive, but he'll only give them a budget somewhere between their current spending and the $3 billion per year increase NASA is looking for. But all that means is that NASA will have to buddy up with international space programs a little more.

Let's face it, we weren't going to get to Mars on our own anyway. As long as NASA is still alive, and there's still a remote chance of me seeing a mission to Mars in my lifetime, I'm a happy camper. [New Scientist, image via Matthew Simantov]

Stuck in a soft patch of sand since April, its whole right side sounds damaged, thanks to the front-right wheel which hasn't worked since 2006, and now the back-right wheel that has seized up trying to get out of the sand.

Solar-powered, the Spirit Rover normally rests up each winter with its solar back angled towards any available sunlight, with enough power soaking in to keep its inside-bits from freezing. But if it can't move out of the sand pit it's stuck in, the Spirit Rover won't be able to soak up those vital rays of light.

NASA, if we all collected enough tinned soup and woolly jumpers to send to Mars, would that help? [New Scientist]

At least, that's the plan. Really they're not expecting much from their efforts. Even though NASA has spent half a year planning how to get the rover out of the loose sand it's stuck in, every step will be dependent on what happens during the previous one. Right now NASA only has six forward rotations of Spirit's wheels planned. They anticipate extreme slippage, and will have to reevaluate the next steps once that first miniscule motion is completed.

If work continues at that pace, it's easy to see why escape efforts are planned to last until 2010. Even if Spirit can't get out of the sand trap that swallowed it, there's still plenty of good the rover can do while stationary. Just know that, whatever happens, we're all pulling for you little buddy. [Network World via Slashdot]

[Wired Science and Big Picture]

We're able to see the lander in the images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter despite the low-light conditions and the reflective effects of the carbon dioxide frost. The HiRISE team did have to play around with the contrast and angles to get the image we see, but how many pictures pass without some sort of processing anyway.

Photos like this one are intended to help us understand the winter patterns and transitions of Mars better, but all I understand at the moment is need to drink a cup of hot chocolate on behalf of the Phoenix lander. [HiRISE via NASA]

You see, while Opportunity continues to function nominally after nearly six years on planet, its companion Spirit, on the opposite side of the planet, is really showing signs of age.

As we all know, Spirit has been stuck in deep Martian sand for some time now. That hasn't changed. What has changed is the rover's memory. It's going. NASA scientists are calling the issue "amnesia," and it isn't the first time this phenomenon has affected the rover.

Basically, what happens during an amnesia event is the rover fails to record any observations—scientific or otherwise—in its flash memory during power down time at night. Worse still, the cause is unknown. My uneducated guess is a Martian is playing with a magnet. Update: Fine. Magnets don't affect flash. I get it. It's now a ray gun.

The events are a nuisance for now, but could become crippling if they start happening more often. It's troubling, yes, but we must remind ourselves these rovers were built for 90-day missions. Spirit is currently going on five years, nine months. Even so, get well soon. [MSNBC]

These are Martian dust devils, running over the soil of the Red Planet. Taken by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, they are responsible of marking its surface with strange, capricious shapes. According to NASA:

This portion of a recent high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails criss-crossing light colored terrain on the martian surface. Newly formed trails like these had presented researchers with a tantalizing martian mystery but are now known to be the work of miniature wind vortices known to occur on the red planet - martian dust devils. Such spinning columns of rising air heated by the warm surface are also common in dry and desert areas on planet Earth.

In Mars, however, they can be up eight kilometers high. But why do they leave those marks? Easy: The wind picks up the red dust, leaving the dark sand beneath on its place. The Universe, my dear armchair cosmonauts, is a wondrous place. [NASA]

The committee outlines eight options. Three of those involve a "flexible path" to explore someplace other than the moon, eventually heading to a Mars landing far in the future. The flexible path suggests no-landing flights around the moon and Mars.

Landing on the moon and then launching back to Earth would require a lot of fuel because of the moon's gravity. Hauling fuel from Earth to the moon and then back costs money.

It would take less fuel to land and return from asteroids or comets that swing by Earth or even the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, Augustine said.

Eventually, Augustine said NASA could return to the moon, but as a training stepping stone, not a major destination, as the Bush plan envisioned.

Really, we've been to the moon. It's old news. We're pretty positive there are no aliens there. Any possibility of life in our solar system exists further out, possibly on liquidy moons of the gaseous giants. So why waste time and money on the moon? Let's go to where the real action is. [USA Today via Dvice]

There are plenty of necessary qualifications to meet including fluency in Russian, background in medicine, various engineering, and for whatever reason you may not be taller than 185cm (that's just under 6'1"). Interested? Apply on the ESA website. [ESA via PhysOrg]

Zoom in to enjoy the graphic in HD

Out of 42 missions, only 20 have succeeded. That's less than 50% chance of survival. And it gets worse: Of those, only eight were actually programmed to land on Mars, which is actually the theoretically difficult part.

While the success rate increased after 1971, I would be very nervous if I were a budding astronaut wanting to go up there—and still, I wish I was that astronaut. Better go in style while trying to reach the glory, than staying down here, slowly turning to dust. [Shnelll via Fastcompany]

Those big oval-shaped tanks store fuel for the test bed's thrusters, one set of which guide its altitude/landing. For the tests here on Earth, an additional thruster offsets gravity so the others function as they would on the moon.

NASA is developing a flight mission to travel to the lunar poles, but also designing the landers to set down on the moon's mid-regions. To build-out the program, Marshall partnered with John Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab, and the Von Braun Center for Science and Innovation.

Given the recent discovery of water molecules on the moon, I'm thinking they're gonna keep getting funding. Very cool. [NASA via The Huntsville Times]

The Orbiter has been studying Mars since 2006, and the new shots below add to a collection of over 1,500 taken by the HiRISE camera since April.

Because the HiRISE images are taken in red, blue-green and infrared, the images you see are not true color, but the result of several techniques to make them better for humans to look at.

The results speak for themselves, right? (Click "Full Size" to view them at 2560 by 1920) [The University of Arizona and NASA]

Click on the image to enlarge to see all the incredible detail. Warning, it's huge and takes time to load.

According to NASA, this unique angle will give scientist a great opportunity to study the geological layers in this area. It looks like a dried lake to me—of course is not—but that's just my ignorant untrained eye making things up. [NASA]

And you saw this one coming, didn't you?

The study is the brainchild of a European Space Agency and Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems partnership. The subjects weren't astronauts but volunteers from various parts of the globe with backgrounds in the military and aviation.

But the worst part of the experience? It wasn't language barriers or bad food. It was the "monotony," according to one crew member.

While researchers plan a longer, 520-day simulated trip to Mars (in reality, the roundtrip would still take twice as long), 6 volunteers get to explain to friends and family the thrill of almost not going into space.

I say we just make the whole thing a reality show, drop some sharks in the tank and get the international space program some Fox sponsorship.

Ion engines aren't strong enough to lift a rocket out of orbit, but once a ship is in space it would make the trip to Mars a hell of a lot faster.

Ion engines, on the other hand, accelerate electrically charged atoms, or ions, through an electric field, thereby pushing the spacecraft in the opposite direction. They provide much less thrust at a given moment than do chemical rockets, which means they can't break free of the Earth's gravity on their own.

But once in space, they can give a continuous push for years, like a steady breeze at the back of a sailboat, accelerating gradually until they're moving faster than chemical rockets.

If connected to an onboard nuclear reactor, an ion engine could propel a craft to mars in a mere 39 days, which would make the whole trip worthwhile. Of course, first they need to figure out how to put a nuclear reactor on a spaceship and also build an appropriately badass ion engine. But once they do that, we're golden. [New Scientist via io9]

Critics believe that going back to the moon is, as Aldrin put it "a glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago"—something that would waste time and money that we could be spending on a trip to Mars. NASA argues that going back to the moon and establishing a permanent base is an essential stepping stone to a successful Mars mission—a feat that would take at least 20 years to accomplish according to their estimates.

The issue here, it seems, is not that we should ever step foot on the moon again, it's that NASA and the Obama administration should grow a set of balls by prioritizing Mars and fully committing to a program right now. After all, we went from nearly zero to the moon in the sixties with primitive technology. What do you think? Should we skip the moon and head for Mars?

[CNN and Yahoo/ Image via Starts With a Bang]

It comes from Mars. What you are looking at here is the belly of Spirit, taken on Sol 1925—June 2, 2009—by the rovers' microscopic imager instrument, which is located on the end of her robotic arm. The image's tilt—which is out of focus because the microscope is designed to focus on 2.4-inch targets—shows the actual orientation of the rover, skewed to the right. Hopefully, this will help Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers to figure a way to free her. [JPL]

Apparently, the job pays as much as $160 a day—which means I could earn an extra $5,000 per month writing for Giz while lying down and peeing into a bedpan. Sounds like a dream come true, but I will not be signing up. You see, these "pillownauts" experience nasty side effects like sore feet, muscle weakness, headaches, toothaches and runny noses/eyes. Plus, I would think that lying on your back for weeks on end like that would drive you to madness.

Still, this is what our astronauts will have to contend with should we make extended trips to the Moon and, eventually, Mars—so it is a necessary evil. But the question remains: could you handle this for a month in the name of science? [PopSci]