With a range of unmanned missions to Mars reaching their destination at the start of 2021, now is a very good time to explore the field of astrophysics. Commercial opportunities in this field are booming, more countries than ever before are getting involved with their own projects, and massive leaps are being made when it comes to the tech that humans use in space. Of course, though, it can be hard to tell quite how far this field has come when you aren’t a member of it. To help you out with this and to give you a better insight into modern space science, this post will be exploring the position of a range of key areas at the start of 2021.
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Space Exploration
Okay, so the first area to cover isn’t quite as exciting as the others. Space exploration has definitely come a long way over the last few decades, but there have been very few missions involving sending real people to other planets. The International Space Station has been permanently occupied for a long time, providing vital research that will be used to help the next generations of space explorers to overcome the challenges presented by space. Other than this, though, it’s been a long time since a person set food on something new.
Telescopes & Other Monitoring
While watching from Earth doesn’t always give the clearest idea of what is in space, modern telescopes are able to delve far deeper into the cosmic soup than ever before. As a result, scientists have been able to identify loads of planets that have the potential to have similar conditions to Earth, presenting the potential for other life. There are new telescopes on the horizon, making this field of space science extra exciting.
Quantum Physics
Quantum physics has always been a field that is largely based on theories. There is a lot of cutting edge anti-matter and anti-gravity research being undertaken at the moment, with scientists working to understand the greatest mysteries of the universe, but this is just one example of a field like this. As time goes by, humans are sure to gain a much better understanding of quantum physics, providing a wealth of useful information that could help with future space exploration technology.
Private Space Missions
It’s hard to ignore companies like SpaceX at the moment, with faces like Elon Musk constantly appearing in the news. Private companies have started to come out of the woodwork to stake their claim to space, and this is something that could push exploration further than ever before. In the past, governments were the only groups working on this sort of technology, but this is changing as the work becomes more profitable.
As time goes on, space exploration is going to slowly become more and more normal for humans. While this may seem like it is very far away, recent advancements are making the idea of space travel an increasingly reasonable one. Of course, though, this doesn’t mean that you will be able to blast off any time soon.
