Top Space Story in 2010?

I know a couple stories that would be tops in my book:

"Spirit Free!" and "Opportunity Arrives at Endeavour's Rim"

An exoplanet with a ring system or a satellite

Binary Kuiper object with a 50/50 mass ratio

Complaint from lunar ambassador regarding Cabeus impact

Those would be great! I'm afraid, though -- or do I mean glad? -- that the major space stories of 2010 will be out of bounds here. I know something about the biggest news here, though: it'll be unexpected!

Hmmm, I wonder what the biggest news of 2009 was for unmannedspaceflight.com? Which topics / threads generated the most page views / comments?

My WAG: Spirit's predicament. LCROSS might be second place.

UMSF Invision Board 2009 Stats.

Top Three Attachments :
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=139043
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=142504
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=142917

New Registrations - 435
New Threads - 581
New Posts - 18,554
Thread Views - 1,406,444

UMSF.com AWStats
Unique Visitors 387,000
Visits : 911,297
Page Views : 6,886,486
Hits : 47,133,446
Bandwidth : 380.54 GB

Plus a further 12,336,448 pages 12,704,607 hits and 195.94 GB by Search Engines etc.


Views per sub-forum
Spirit
332059
Opportunity
214477
LRO & LCROSS
122768
Titan
88558
Mars
77919
Chit Chat
68107
Cassini General
48286
Conferences, Publications and Broadcasts
45166
Telescopic Observations
44740
Icy Moons
34441
Jupiter
30810
MRO 2005
28305
Earth Observations
26932
Lunar Exploration
26427
Tech, General and Imagery
24701
MSL 2011
23358
Uranus and Neptune
16242
Image Processing Techniques
16168
Messenger
15136
Sun
14740
Phoenix
14665
Cometary and Asteroid Missions
11386
Past and Future
11341
Exploration Strategy
10088
Forum Management
10053
Admin and Mod
9721
Front Page Stories
8386
Private Missions
6133
Venus
5168
Saturn
4981
Voyager and Pioneer
4281
Mars Express & Beagle 2
3957
Pluto / KBO
3534
Mars Odyssey
1990
Mercury
1420

Total
1,406,444

I'm amazed that one of my images would become the most downloaded attachment

That Saturn ring edge illumination shot certainly became a hot topic. Real vs imagined!
About 5,500 downloads! While it might not have been real it certainly demonstrates UMSF'ers hunger for the amazing.

Dan's entry with the "enhanced" Venus-Earth from Spirit's night obs was also a hit but again 'not real'.

Fran's animation of the dust devil approaching Spirit's position is the best and only true 'real' image of the top three and so deserves the best attachment of 2009.

Um...you're amazed why???

Top 3 stories 2010:

Hubble Space Telescope new discoveries
Curious to see what Opportunity will find near Endeavour crater
Hopefully another operational high-precision spectrometer at the 4.2 m WHT in La Palma to perform follow-up of Kepler's discoveries

Well, let's see, in an ideal world it would have to be the appearance of a bright supernova in the sky, closely followed by the discovery of a comet that would fly very close to Earth, so close that it would be a blazing bright naked eye object at night, casting shadows, and even visible in the daytime sky... these two things would inspire a whole generation of new astronomers and have mankind looking at the sky in wonder again... then the subsequent discovery that the outbound comet would actually impact Mars would change things, and the world would watch fascinated and fearful as Spirit and Oppy sent back images showing the comet steadily growing bigger and brighter in the sky in the weeks and days before impact. Then on Impact Day, Mars would be hit, and images taken by Hubble would show the flash, the shock wave, and the great plume of dust rising up from the impact site, eventually smothering the entire planet in a blanket of dust. On the surface, both Spirit and Oppy survive, just, and when they start sending images back the world has a new understanding of just how dangerous such impacts are, and this leads to renewed interest in and support for space exploration, and space programs to protect and defend Earth from similar assaults...

... but in the real world I'm thinking:

* Oppy reaches Endeavour and sees stunning scenes...

* A SETI signal is detected

( Ok, maybe sticking my neck out a little with number 2 there, but I hope for that every year; I've got to be right eventually! )

Top 3 in 2010 (in order of probable media buzz):


-WISE detects one or more brown dwarfs closer than Proxima Centauri
-Exoplanet tally increases dramatically as size of detectable planets drops into Earth-sized & below range (first Kepler results)
-Oppy reaches Endeavour

1) Phoenix comes alive
2) Cassini abruptly fails for unknown reasons
3) Major Lunar impact is predicted and occurs, not visible from Earth but LRO captures images within a day

Ooo, crystal ball time:

1) Lightcurve survey of outer satellites of Jupiter and Saturn reveal 2-3 binary moons.
2) Like nprev, I'll go with a WISE discovery of a brown dwarf ~1 ly from Earth
3) Cassini observes impact on Saturn (after effects anyway)

We keep forgetting a biggie: TPS' LightSail is launched successfully & performs as advertised!

(Dan, shame on you for your #2! )

Yeah, I've already cast my vote for that one.

Yeah!



No!

What about these

0 WISE finds a random 100 km object heading toward the inner solar system from the kuiper belt.
1 Spirit escapes and returns to being a roving Martian Energizer bunny.
2 Return of the Phoenix.
3 Cassini finds cryovolcanoes on Dione or Rhea.
4 Venus Express finds active volcanoes on Venus.
5 Rosetta discovers Lutetia has a crust of rust.
6 The Sun has its largest CME ever recorded in modern times.
7 Dawn finds extinct volcanoes on Vesta.

That's a nice ratio of curiosity to useless, redundant blather. My personal ratio is prolly 1,000 to 1

Many thanks again to informed enthousiasts here at UMSF who take time to answer questions that were previously addressed!

My pick for hot story of 2010 is an earth-size KBO/Oort object.

In order of media buzz. (Taking guesses here)

(1) Water discovered on Mars!
(2) Spirit, stricken with mobility issues, fails to reach a safe haven and survives the winter only by allowing at least one instrument to die.
(3) Cassini finds [something amazing] (I'm hoping for emission from Dione or Rhea, too)
(4) No response from Phoenix.
(5) MRO goes into safe mode.
(6) LRO finds [something special].

WAG:
The Sun continues to settle down -- sunspots remain very low -- speculation of a 2nd Maunder Minimum

0 MESSENGER finds signs for recent volcanic activity (<100 Years)
1 LRO finds one of the Lunokhod Rovers
2 Spirit got unstuck and all wheels are working again ;-)
3 Phoenix got reactivated in March
4 Cassini discovers a Ring around Rhea
5 New Horizon fails on it's way to Pluto for an unknown reason (I don't hope so, but that would truly be a Top Story)