Unknown New Discoveries
One thing that can be known with certainty is that the future will be surprising. Over the course of the year, NASA’s current suite of missions will continue churning out scientific data, potentially leading to an unexpected discovery. Among the agency's ongoing missions are the following:
The Mars-exploring Opportunity rover, still going strong despite the shutdown of its twin on March 22, 2011, will provide important information as it waits out the Martian winter in a favorable spot around Endeavor crater. The planet-hunting Kepler satellite will get ever closer to spotting an Earth-like extrasolar planet, releasing new data in January, July, and October.
The Cassini spacecraft, circling the ringed beauty Saturn since 2004, will continue exploring the gas giant and its environ, making a total of 20 flybys around the liquid bearing moon Titan and 10 flybys of the water-spewing Enceladus. The MESSENGER spacecraft, in orbit around Mercury, will continue photographing the planet's polar regions, potentially discovering ice in the deep shadows of craters. And should the agency have the money, the Deep Impact satellite, which shot a projectile at comet Tempel 1 to study its interior and later flew by comet Hartley 2, may make a small course correction in October to set up for an encounter with asteroid 2002 GT in 2020
Image: The smallest extrasolar planets that Kepler has spotted to date. 2012 may see the discovery of smaller and more Earth-like exoplanets. NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech.