Channel 24 has collected all the events of the year that really should not be missed. The list includes key space missions and launches, energy research, Twitter changes, and more.

WITHfall James Webb telescope

It is worth starting this selection with the James Webb telescope. Despite being launched on 25 December 2021, it reached its permanent position in January. The first pictures were taken later.

• Webb is NASA’s main long-term project, with nearly $10 billion being spent. The launch of the space observatory was constantly delayed for various reasons.
• The telescope is the largest, most expensive and most sensitive optical and infrared space telescope in human history and one of the most important astronomy projects of the 21st century. It is considered the successor to Hubble as NASA’s flagship mission.
• The device began to take photos and discoveries already at the stage of tuning. Yes, he was able to see the oldest and most distant stars and galaxies, take pictures of planets in the Solar System, show nebulae and much more.

In June, unpleasant news came about the telescope: one of its mirrors collided with a micrometeorite. This caused damage, but NASA operators adjusted other mirrors to compensate for the loss. Webb is designed with a certain margin of performance just for such situations.

Companies and brands support Ukraine

With the start of the Russian invasion, many technology companies announced that they were withdrawing from the occupying market. The Rashists were deprived of technologies from Apple, Sony, AMD, Boeing, Cisco, Ericsson and dozens of others. Some services have also left, including Spotify and Netflix. Some other brands still allow Russians to use free apps, but have stopped accepting payments, making purchases impossible.

At the same time, new brands began to enter Ukraine. Yes, PayPal and Starlink worked for us. Sony has finally added the Ukrainian language to the PlayStation 5. Facebook did the same in its iOS app. DeepL, one of the best online translators, also started working with Ukrainian.

Elon Musk buys Twitter

As early as the spring, the saga around Twitter begins. Elon Musk bought the first shares of the company and later became the sole owner, saying he wanted to buy it all. This is how the deal came to be, which was closed only in October after numerous disagreements and mutual accusations between the then administration and Tesla’s chairman.

Literally from the first hours, Musk began to make changes. It fired thousands of workers and imposed “hard” overtime on those who remained. Now the company has arranged sleeping places in the office so that people can spend the night at work. In addition, the new section actively changes the content moderation policy, plans new features and removes some old ones.

However, things are not going well at the company. Due to Musk’s controversial statements about “freedom of speech” and unblocking pages that previously violated the rules, advertisers were stunned by discrimination, hate speech, racism, etc. Fearing that the numbers would rise, he suspended his campaigns. This led to significant monetary losses.

thermonuclear energy

The year 2022 has been the year of breakthroughs in thermonuclear energy research, which could potentially become an ecological and inexhaustible source of energy for all humanity.

• First of all, it is worth mentioning an important discovery made by Swiss researchers. They found this scientists around the world misunderstood the physics of thermonuclear plasma. As a result, the openness will allow more energy to be obtained from thermonuclear reactors and the facilities will be easier to manage.
• In the spring, we learned about the successful testing of the Australian startup HB11, which is working on an alternative approach to synthesis – using laser pulses instead of temperatures of one million degrees Celsius to trigger the reaction. The team was successful and announced the fusion success.
• But the most important news came out in December. American scientists, together with the US Department of Energy, announced a historic achievement: For the first time, it was possible to generate 50 percent more energy than was used to power the experiment and start the reaction.. This does not mean that soon we can completely switch to a new type of energy, because its amount is still small. Scientists are faced with the task of scaling and improving the process.

Everyone loves Dynamic Island

Not to mention the new iPhone 14. This year, the company Apple has finally saved users from the annoying “explosions” that even their fans have been criticizing for years. Replaced by Dynamic Island, which is a dynamic island. However, only the older models, the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, were lucky. The younger ones still stay with the old design.

The company has done a good job incorporating Dynamic Island into the interface. The island area is constantly changing, responding to user actions and content on the screen. It can expand to show notifications, provide background information, show match results, and more.

Such a design decision paid off. Many users chose more expensive models precisely because of the presence of Dynamic Island.

DART crashes into an asteroid

The fall also witnessed an event that could potentially save humanity from an asteroid impact. NASA’s DART spacecraft successfully crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos. This project is humanity’s attempt to check whether an asteroid can change its orbit directly in space. IT world’s first “planetary defense test mission” and was considered highly successful.

Mass layoffs in the tech industry

At the end of the year, technology firms found themselves in difficult conditions. They have grown and expanded over the years, but are now forced to lay off tens of thousands of workers due to the losses they have suffered due to the economic downturn. only in November The number of people laid off by companies reached 45,000.

Humanity returns to the moon

On November 16, another important mission began, which was repeatedly postponed due to problems. We’re talking about Artemis 1, the beginning of humanity’s return to the moon. As part of the mission, a Space Launch Systems rocket was launched that carried the Orion spacecraft into space.

Orion charted a course to the Moon, flew around and posted lots of photos and videos. The mission ended successfully: on December 11, the apparatus returned to Earth.

Now NASA will make plans for Artemis 2, which will take astronauts on a 10-day mission around the moon in 2024. The next flight after that, Artemis 3, will land astronauts at the Moon’s south pole in 2025 or 2026. Future missions under NASA’s Artemis program will help establish a research base in this region believed to be rich in water ice.