INSpiREzine Stars! | Page 33

2015: Outredgeous red romaine

lettuce became the first food to be

grown and eaten in space.

2016: Exoplanet Proxima Centauri b

is discovered around Proxima Centauri

by the European Southern Observatory,

making it the closest known exoplanet

to the solar system as of 2016.

On August 17, 2017, a neutron star

collision that occurred in the galaxy

NGC 4993 produces a gravitational

wave signal that is observed by the

LIGO/Virgo observatories. Circling

each other in a decaying orbit, the

neutron stars crashed together at

nearly the speed of light, radiating

gravitational waves and a torrent of

electromagnetic radiation that reached

Earth at roughly the same moment 130

million years after the fact!

April 10, 2019, NASA captures the first picture of a Black Hole