In the early years of the 2010s, the world waited breathlessly for NASA to make the call. For nearly 35 years, two intrepid spacecraft surged past the planets in our solar system, snapping pictures of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune among other photogenic worlds. They hurtled toward an ominous barrier—the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space.

H/T: Popular Mechanics

The fantastic voyage continues!



One year ago this week, Voyager 2 joined me in interstellar space. Today, five papers published detailing my twin's findings in the region just beyond the bubble created by our Sun. https://t.co/RqOfl7uV3F pic.twitter.com/ucRiTafLW3 — NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) November 4, 2019

Higgs boson (2013)

Also knows as "God particle" produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, it is the particle that gave all matter its mass right after the Big Bang. pic.twitter.com/6W52NI9IDF — Milaa (@milaamroo) December 30, 2019

The Hubble Space Telescope's latest photo of a spiral galaxy does not disappoint pic.twitter.com/ofsRdwKvFq — Top Tech Hits (@toptechin2019) December 29, 2019

RT WorldAndScience "Animated Representation of Multi-Planet Systems Discovered by Kepler Space Telescope



Credit: Ethan Kruse NASA Goddard / Music: Deliberate Thought Kevin MacLeod pic.twitter.com/SBBz8ZxiLA" — Mr. Cauthers (@MrCauthers) December 26, 2019

KEPLER SPACE TELESCOPE

It is a retired space telescope launched by NASA to discover

Earth-size planets orbiting other stars .Kepler leaves a legacy

of more than 2600 planet discoveries from outside our solar

system.Launched on 7th March 2009

retired on 30th october 2018 pic.twitter.com/RLkN6KCrd4 — Vishal kr (@Vishal27634674) December 22, 2019

This mathematical wizardry shows that tidal forces are actually a hidden form of gravitational waves. https://t.co/jvrN8eOF4o — MIT Technology Review (@techreview) January 2, 2020

In 2016 the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory observed gravitational waves. This is also quite complex but much easier to follow than the Higgs Boson; basically, it means that mass in space produces waves like pebbles in water. https://t.co/fcUMZvTCNE — TimeInAYear (@TimeInAYear) December 30, 2019

Gravitational waves sent out from a pair of colliding black holes have been converted to sound waves, as heard in this animation. On September 14, 2015, LIGO observed gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes, each about 30 times the mass of our sun. The incredibly powerful event, which released 50 times more energy than all the stars in the observable universe, lasted only fractions of a second.

It seems the pace of exporation is set to accelerate through the 2020's: