Astronomy’s 10 most popular space stories of 2019 – Astronomy Magazine

December 27, 2019

From the first picture of a black hole’s event horizon to Hubble’s discovery of a weird, football-shaped planet, these are the stories that caught our readers’ attention the most.

By Staff | Published: Friday, December 27, 2019

RELATED TOPICS: BLACK HOLES | EXOPLANETS | NEW HORIZONS | STARS | GALAXIES

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Lunar and Planetary Institute/Paul Schenk (LPI, Houston)

2. The enigma of Enceladus

This tiny saturnian moon may be, pound for pound, the most valuable piece of real estate in the solar system.

NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI, NOAO

3. New Horizons survived its flyby of MU₆₉

Previously known as Ultima Thule and now officially named Arrokoth, this landmark flyby passed the farthest object that any craft has ever visited.

ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Alves et al.

8. Baby stars found twisting planet-forming disks into a pretzel

Thanks to this unprecedented look into the early lives of binary stars, researchers have gotten a glimpse into the complex formation of the most common stellar setup.

Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

10. Event Horizon Telescope released the first ever black hole image

After decades of theorizing about the possibility of catching a black hole image, astronomers finally pulled it off. The results offer new insights into the mysterious objects.