From distant galaxies to missing links … the big scientific breakthroughs of 2009

Water on the moon

No doubt about it: There’s water on the moon. In October, a NASA satellite was sent hurtling into a crater on the lunar surface, kicking up a plume of dust that contained telltale hydrogen molecules, indicating the presence of frozen water. Local water, if it exists in any quantity, would open the door to establishing a base or settlement on the moon, a necessary first step in human travel to Mars. After decades of dashed hopes, even the ghost of water will do for now. “I was one of the ones back in the Apollo days that was firmly against lunar water,” says geologist Lawrence Taylor. “I’ve eaten my shorts.”

The Hubble Telescope 2.0

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The Hubble Space Telescope returned to service, better than ever before, and immediately began sending back the best view of the universe mankind has ever had. In May, NASA astronauts spent nearly two weeks in space installing new batteries, gyroscopes, computer parts, and two far-seeing instruments. The first images from the revitalized Hubble appeared in September; the sight of a distant, dragon-shaped galaxy and a dying star shaped like a butterfly left researchers like Heidi Hammel, of the Space Science Institute, “giddy with the quality of the data.” With luck, the telescope will continue mapping the early universe and analyzing the atmospheres of distant planets for several years to come. “Thank God we didn’t break it,” says astronaut and repairman Michael Massimino.

A pair of missing links

It was a big year for missing links. A team of California scientists unveiled “Ardi,” or Ardipithecus ramidus, a nearly complete skeleton of a newly discovered human ancestor that lived in Africa 4.4 million years ago. That’s a million years earlier than “Lucy,” previously the oldest-known hominid. With her grasping feet and small brain, Ardi alters the narrative of human evolution, indicating that humans and chimps each evolved from an even more distant common ancestor. Meanwhile, Norwegian scientists found “Ida,” aka Darwinius masillae, a 47-million-year-old lemur-like creature that could be the mammal from which all higher primates, including humans, eventually arose. “This is the first link to all humans, the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor,” says paleontologist Jorn Hurum.

A new source of stem cells

For the first time, scientists in China managed to re-engineer skin cells to become stem cells, which were then grown into live mice. The researchers used a relatively new technique that creates stem cells that are as versatile as embryonic stem cells, but that don’t arise from an actual embryo. The cells were then inserted into mouse placental tissue and induced to grow into healthy mice—mice that were cloned from just a few cells. “We have gone from science fiction to reality,” says cell biologist Robert Lanza. The advance could offer a way to sidestep ethical concerns about the use of fetal stem cells for biomedical research. But it also opens the door more widely to the possible creation of human clones, Lanza says. “All the pieces are here for serious abuse.”