Best Space Finds Of 2009

1 The year 2009 will go down in history as the watershed year in field of space. From starling revelations like the next ice-age phase to other spectacular discoveries like the water on moon and Martian shorelines, it has been a prolific year of space findings. Now, National Geographic has listed the best space explorations of the year 2009.

2 A new computer model has suggested that the outer crusts of so-called neutron stars are ten billion times stronger than steel, and is in fact, the strongest known material in the universe.

3 Another space discovery of the yr is that Jupiter's moon Europa may harbor fish-sized life in its oceans. A provocative new research suggested that the amount of oxygen in the ocean would be enough to support more than just microscopic life-forms, with at least three million tons of fishlike creatures theoretically living and breathing on Europa.

4. The discovery of 32 new planets outside our solar system, bringing the massive haul of new worlds to more than 400.

5. Another space discovery of the year is that pictures taken in summer 2008 showed strange globs on the leg of the Phoenix Mars Lander that seemed to behave like liquid water, which could be the first proof that modern Mars hosts liquid water

This substance is probably saline mud that splashed up as the craft landed; study leader and Phoenix co-investigator Nilton Renno of the University of Michigan had told National Geographic News. Salt in the mud then absorbed water vapor from the atmosphere, forming the watery drops, according to Renno.

6. This finding of Gliese 581d, the most Earthlike planet yet found, may have liquid oceans.

7. Exploration of the oldest of the subatomic particles called neutrinos might each encompass a space larger than thousands of galaxies.

8. The other space discovery of the year is that high-resolution pictures of a Martian valley revealed three-billion-year-old shorelines along what was once a body of water about the size of Lake Champlain, which is the first proof of ancient Mars lakeshores.

9. Finding of water on the Moon, when NASA crashed a two-ton rocket into a permanently shadowed crater on the moon's South Pole in October.

10. finding of a green 'two-tailed' comet that buzzed by Earth on a one-time visit in late February.

11. This is top space discovery of the year is that the Sun's oddly quiet phase might be indicative of the next 'little ice age'.