Space discoveries that will blow your mind

The size of the universe is hard to fathom, and it’s expanding even faster than scientists originally thought. While humans will never map out the entirety of space, that doesn’t stop them from exploring it. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been around since 1958. Japan, Russia, and France—just to name a few countries—all have space agencies dedicated to exploring the final frontier.

Since NASA’s inception in 1958, astronauts have landed on the moon, parked a robot-controlled rover on Mars, and discovered thousands of exoplanets—planets that orbit stars outside of this solar system. Scientists can even explore the 95% of invisible space comprised of dark energy, dark matter, and dark radiation. Each year on the first Friday in May, the United States observes National Space Day in honor of the remarkable achievements already made and those still to come in our continued exploration of space. To celebrate our many milestones in this arena, Stacker compiled a list of 30 mind-blowing space discoveries after searching news archives and reports from NASA. Click through to see what they’ve uncovered—from a super-Earth and sun twins to the first photograph of a black hole.

You may also like: 1 million species are facing annihilation—inside Earth's sixth mass extinction event