It's Been A Busy Year For A Tiny Planet Whirling Through Space

It's the one-year io9iversary of Earth & Space, the physical sciences subsite for all your astronomy, geology, and planetary science needs.

The Space subsite has been around a long time — the first article dates back to January 24, 2013, followed shortly by a stamp-memorial to the Challenger disaster — covering all things astronomy and space related. But this is my io9iversary, the date that marks when I came on board and started blurring the lines between astronomy, geology, and planetary sciences. After 90 days (and a lot of learning about how to write a proper headline), we started talking about updating the site name to match its expanded focus. That day has finally come: Welcome to Earth & Space, io9's subsite celebrating the wonders of the physical sciences.

Earthrise over Ritz Crater from an altitude of 113 kilometers during Apollo 17, and the new avatar for the Earth and Space subsite. Image credit: NASA

The site style is updating to match the new name. Both the avatar and logo showcase the Earth in the blackness of space, mixing something old and new. The avatar remains a historic photograph, switching from the Apollo 11 launch to an iconic earthrise taken during Apollo 17. Our new logo features imagery not even a year old courtesy of the Lunar Reconnoissance Orbiter, a shot of Earth captured from 376,687 kilometers away on May 24, 2014.

Want to catch up on the past year of Earth & Space news? Here are my favourites of the more than 500 articles in the past 365 days:

Astronomy and Space Science

Space Station: The International Space Station continues to be a project under-construction, with a trio of spacewalks preparing it to reconfigure for the commercial crew program. It's still going to look downright creepy at night, though. The Canadarm paired up with its independent robotic hand, Dextre, to become the first self-repairing robotic team in space. Holiday dinners on the Space Station are decidedly unappetizing, but at least they now have a coffee machine. If the astronauts find they need something that wasn't packed in their cargo tugs, they now have a 3D printer for custom on-demand manufacturing.

The space station was filled to capacity several times over with the constant cycle of new crews and cargo runs. We saw the last of ESA's ATVs, the stunningly beautiful reentry of a JAXA tug, and many more launches and landings. In less happy news, we also watched the Antares rocket explosion.

ESA astronaut Hans Schlegelaut during a 2008 spacewalk. Image credit: NASA

Astronauts: Astronauts certainly get up to mischief when they aren't busy with science experiments or making us jealous of their excellent views. Where do astronauts go when they aren't on the space station? A surprising variety of places! The places they used to go is equally as fantastic.

Solar System: This artistic representation of the solar system where both the size of objects and distances between them are set to the same scale is delightfully distracting. This is the most detailed map of Triton, refurbished by someone who was in the room when the first data was sent home.

It was a good year for Mars: the planet got two new orbiting satellites: Maven, and just days later, Mangalyaan. A little later, they and all the other Martian robots had to hide from Comet Siding Spring's close enounter. We also heard about what tools to expect on the Mars 2020 rover, confirming it's going to be even more of a geophysicist than previous rovers.

Our dynamic sun had an active year, well-documented by Solar Dynamics Observatory. We saw a flare in unprecedented detail, observing it with five observatories at the same time. The gamification of stellar fusion is weirdly addictive.

Exoplanets: Our universe keeps getting stranger with every new planet discovered. The incredible Kepler Space Telescope broke the 1,000 exoplanet barrier, and is continuing to discover yet more alien worlds. We're even developing techniques to find sun-squished planets.

Astrophysics: A computer glitch gave us an exciting few hours as astrophysicists wondered if we were observing a gamma ray burst in Andromeda, close enough to see well but far enough away to not kill us. Space is even less empty than we thought: stars hang out in the spaces between galaxies. The Boomerang Nebula is weirdly cold.

Exploration: Japan launched an ambitious asteroid lander mission, with a cousin to Rosetta's Philae on board. Rosetta was a breakthrough in our history of getting closer to comets, even if we still aren't quite sure where Philae landed.

After getting knocked off-course when a cosmic ray hit its ion drive, the Dawn spacecraft is closing in on Ceres. Those mysterious white dots are getting more puzzling the more we learn, although we'll be finding out more in just a few more weeks!

Robots: In the history of space robots, this is every place in the solar system that has been inhabited entirely by robots, and every place one has landed. Keeping in touch with them is a full-time occupation for the Deep Space Network.

Four Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray Irradiance Sensors lined up in a cleanroom nursery awaiting installation on GOES satellites. Image credit: NASA/NOAA

Satellites: The Orbital Carbon Observatory launched (finally!), with an entire collection of trivia to supplement the science. The Venus Express died (eventually), leaving the planet without robotic explorers. The ISEE-3 spacecraft was recovered by a crowd-sourced, crowd-funded effort. This fleet of solar satellites may be getting old, but they're still doing good science.

Space Junk: Space junk is a nasty, growing problem. Here's where we send satellites when they die to try to reduce the problem.

Telescopes: The Very Large Array telescopes are deliciously meme-able. Who doesn't love an enormous pair of treaded trucks designed solely to transport telescopes around a desert plateau? Laser guide stars are so, so pretty, and even more useful. The James Webb Space Telescope got a bit closer to reality, with parts manufactured, transported, and tested around the country. We couldn't help but giggle over these truly absurd acronyms seriously in use in astronomy.

New Technology: It was a good year for testing prototypes: NASA took a big step forward in bringing humans to deep space with the first flight test of the Orion capsule. After a few delays, the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator was dropped over Hawaii for its first high-altitude test flight. The Morpheus prototype lander finished its first test cycle, just in time to start up a new series of experiments characterizing its flight capacities and putting the autonomous hazard detection rig through its paces.

Policy: Political tensions between Russia and the US had all sorts of spillover, from Russian officials taunting NASA over its dependence on Soyuz, to threatening to cut off access to a GPS base station.

Sending humans to Mars is awesome, but we need cash to do it. The only trouble is, NASA is so successful that its robots keep lasting longer than their missions.

Ion engine being installed in a high vacuum tank in 1959. Image credit: NASA

History: The history of rocket development at Jet Propulsion Laboratories is completely unreal. The earliest computers employed by NASA were these lovely ladies, because math is for women. NASA and Star Trek have a long history.

In the lead-up to sending humans into space, pigeons and kittens were understandably confused by the vomit comet. They were probably relieved when we popped Alan Shepard into space on Friendship 7. Spaceflight isn't all successes: early problems with the space program led to the development of a new safety program, with Snoopy as a long-lasting mascot.

Impatient researchers coloured the data numbers of very first up-close photograph taken of Mars instead of waiting for processing. The Explorer satellites are hilarious inflatable disco balls for science.

Beauty: I give up on calling space stunning: between the Cat's Eye Planetary Nebula, Trifids, satellite launches, a whole collection of hearts in unexpected places, Hercules A, a supernova remnant, and the Tarantula Nebula, I'm just left constantly basking in beauty. This inconceivably expensive wristwatch orrery is absolutely drool-worthy.

To celebrate various launch anniversaries, we rounded up galleries of favourite photos from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Landsat satellites.

The earth as seen from the International Space Station on February 25, 2015. Image credit: NASA/Sam Cristoforetti ‏

Earth Sciences: Atmospheric Science, Geology, Oceanography, and More!

Weathering & Erosion: Weathering is usually slow and boring, but this exfoliation event in the Sierra Nevada mountains is downright dramatic, and differential erosion produces truly beautiful structures!

Geodynamics & Geodetics: Isostatic Rebound is how the weight of glaciers dents the planet, dropping local sea levels. "The World's Tallest Mountain" is a surprisingly debatable title. We indulged in geologic mysteries of unravelling unusual geomorphology.

Fossils: We looked at the ethical issues of the fossil trade, and spent a lot of time admiring footprints. Ichnology is the study of tracks and traces, the less popular but totally fascinating field of interpreting fossils and animal behaviour.

Weather: We kept an eye on the weather, although not as closely as a forensic meteorologist would. The weather changed on Titan. We saw a spectacular variety of ice halos in a single photograph. In climate news, the Iditarod faced a few problems with not quite enough snow for the dogs to race smoothly.