5 Amazing scientific discoveries of the previous decade

The last decade was undeniably one of the richest periods of scientific discovery ever. Researchers across all disciplines tested hypotheses found proves and visited places that have made us rethink our understanding of not only our own planets but of the entire universe. It was the decade when we finally begin to understand one of the greatest challenges humankind has ever faced and we're learned far more than ever before about some of the most destructive objects in existence.

So let's take a look at 5 of the most amazing scientific discoveries of the 2000.

5. PLUTO

Despite having been unceremoniously downgarded from being a fully fledged planet in 2006. That year also saw the launch of the New Horizons spacecraft that was destined to travel to the farthest reaches of our solar system to study the dwarf planet. It finally reached its destination in july of 2015. In the images and data that were sent back were astonishing. Far from being the boring frozen rock that some had expected, it was found to have moving glaciers, floating ice mountains and a huge frozen sea made of solid nitrogen. The ice is constantly moving but at a slow rates because it is warmed by the pressure above it to rise. The constant replenishment of the top layer of ice creates a surface structures that no one had expected and that has given a new introduction and understanding to what happens on the mysterious dwarff planets at the edge of our solar system.

4. THE HIGGS BOSONS

It took the construction of the world's largest machine at the cost of just under 5 billion dollors but in 2012 it was finally announced that the mysterious Higgs Bosons also known as the god particle have been discovered at the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland. The particle had first been theorized in 1964 and is one of the most influential pieces of the standard model of physics and unfamiliar ones such as quarts doesn't actually explain why objects have mass? The answer though is the elusive Higgs boson particle which exists in the Higgs field and due to its interaction with other particles it's the reason why mass exists. It's discovery was the confirmation of the last unknown part of the standard model of physics and now researchers are able to repurpose the LHC to begin investigating even stranger phenomenon.

3. KEPLER

For thousands of years humans have looked to the skies wondering What's up there? As astronomical devices were invented we learned that countless stars existed throughout the universe and that there are other planets in our own solar system but it was impossible to learn how common it is for planets to orbit stars. This all changed in 2009 with the launch of the first kepler probe which was used to study distant stars and measured the amount of light they emit. Fluctuations in their brightness can be used to determine whether any objects are orbiting them and the results have been unbelievable. By the end of the last decade more than 4055 exoplanets have been discovered including a few that are potentially habitable and this number is only expected to increase as we enter a new decade. The more we look the more common our own solar system seems to be and you can only imagine what else is out there to be found?

2. THE WORLD'S CLIMATE

Throughout the earth's history the climate has changed drastically. There have been periods of extreme heat and extreme cold and there's no doubt that things are noticeably changing again during our lifetimes. What's different this time though is that the changes are largely due to human behaviour. Something that became clearer than ever in the last decade and we've begun to understand the extent to how it's affecting the planet. In 2012, 400 billion tons of ice was lost from Greenland and more than 252 billion tons of ice has been lost from Antarctica. Every year throughout the decade this is an increase of almost 6 times the amount being lost just 30 years earlier and at the current rate the world's sea levels are expected to rise by 3 feet by the year 2100. This would directly effect the homes and lives of at least 630 million people. but the consequences are far further reaching. Human activity has meant that 40% of all Amphibian species, more than 33% of marine mammals and 10% of insect species are endangered and things continue to get worse. While the last decade was the time where the extent of the problem was beginning to be fully realized. Let's hope that the next decade is when the solution is finally found.

1. BLACK HOLES

Black holes have long been some of the most mysterious objects in the universe but thanks to researchers dedicating their efforts for studying the phenomena, we've uncovered far more about them and they are much more intresting than we may think. Black holes are typically formed by large stars at the end of their lives and when all the material collapses in on itself to create an unbelievably dense structure and because of their intense gravity causes some very unusual things to happen. In 2016, black holes were detected colloiding into one another which confirmed the prediction made by einstein in 1916. Whereby they created ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves. This amazing discovery wasn't the biggest black hole revelation of the last decade. However as a team working with the event horizon telescope managed to capture the first ever image of a singularity it's a massive black hole that lies at the centre of the Messier 87 galaxy about 54 million light- years away from us. His mass is so big that it is equivalent to 6.5 billion of our Suns. Blackholes like those are thought to be at the centre of every galaxy and their gravitational poles are the reason why so many billions of stars orbit them in such large structures. The 2010 were an incredible time for scientific discoveries and we've learned so much about the world and universe all around us.