The effort to produce Covid-19 vaccines and fight the spread of the virus has put science in the spotlight over the last two years.
But work in all fields of science progressed in the shadow of the pandemic and a number of multibillion-dollar science projects will bear fruit in 2022 with potentially spectacular results.
Remember the Large Hadron Collider? The massive particle accelerator buried underground near Geneva, Switzerland delivered a massive breakthrough in 2012 when scientists used it to discover a new particle, known as the Higgs boson.
This particle, observed through the smashing together of atoms in the high-energy collider, confirmed Peter Higgs’ theory of the Higgs field, an energy field present throughout the universe that gives other particles their mass.
The LHC has been out of action for several years for maintenance and upgrades, but will fire up again this year to conduct a host of new experiments drawing on the collider’s ability to produce 40 million collisions of protons every second.
The US$9.7 billion James Webb Space Telescope was successfully launched by Nasa at Christmas and is en route to take up position over 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth. It is more than a replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope.
Equipped with the biggest mirror of any space telescope yet launched, it will study infrared light from celestial objects. This is a big deal for astronomers, who will be able to use the telescope to look at objects formed just after the Big Bang.
After a delicate six-month long process of unfurling its components, James Webb should be able to return its first images to Earth for scientists to study in the second half of 2022.
A bit closer to home are the series of Moon missions planned for this year, most notably Nasa’s Artemis 1 mission.
The uncrewed lunar mission will hopefully pave the way for humans to return to the surface of the Moon later in the decade and establish a base there. After a number of delays – the latest concerning a faulty engine controller – Nasa hopes to launch Artemis 1 in March or April. There’s lots riding on it for the space agency.
The Covid-19 vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) didn’t just help protect us from the virus. They’ve spawned a flurry of trials to see how the technology could be used against other diseases that kill millions of people every year.
BioNTech will start a clinical trial of a vaccine for malaria this year. Moderna is attempting to develop a vaccine for HIV. If successful, these vaccines could save millions of lives every year.
Scientific efforts will also ramp up to tackle the biggest existential threat of all – climate change. The US$50 billion invested in climate tech last year will fuel a wave of innovation.
Among the projects to watch is Carbon Engineering’s direct air capture facility in Texas, which company claims will suck 1 million tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere each year.
Originally published on Stuff.co.nz.
PETER GRIFFIN 