This article will help provide some really unique astronomical and space events, plus some amazing historic launches in 2024. The astronomical events that will be highlighted are not the normal meteor showers, full moons, or conjunctions. Rather, they are 3 eclipses in 2024, which are highlighted below. 2024 will see the last US solar eclipse for several years, so make sure to visit our 2024 solar eclipse resources.

2024 is lucky enough to have 2 lunar eclipses, 1 which is a penumbral lunar eclipse, and the 2nd is a partial lunar eclipse. The penumbral eclipse is on March 24th and 25th, 2024.

Duration: 4 hours, 39 minutes, 8 seconds
Penumbral begins: Mar 24, 2024 at 9:53:13 pm
Maximum: Mar 25, 2024 at 12:12:46 am
Penumbral ends: Mar 25, 2024 at 2:32:21 am

The partial lunar eclipse visible in the Pacific Northwest is September 17th and 18th, 2024.

The 2024 solar eclipse occurs April 8, 2024, with the maximum totality of 4 minutes and 28 seconds. It will be the first total solar eclipse to be visible in Canada since February 26, 1979, the first in Mexico since July 11, 1991, and the first in the U.S. since August 21, 2017. It will be the only total solar eclipse in the 21st century where totality will be visible in the three-state set of Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

In regards to historic launches, NASA, China, Russia, and India all have launches to explore Earths celestial neighborhood.

The expected launches by NASA includes the planned Artemis 2 mission and the first components of the Lunar Gateway. The Artemis 2 mission has a goal of sending astronauts around the moon on a ten day lunar flyby. The launches for the Lunar Gateway will see the first 2 components launched. This is a big deal as the Lunar Gateway is crucial to NASA efforts to return to the Moon and a stepping stone for crewed missions to Mars in the 2030s.

To study Jupiters Moon Europa, NASA plans to launch the Europa Clipper.

China will launch Chang’e 7 to explore the lunar South Pole, which includes an orbiter, a lander, a rover, and a mini-flying probe.

Japan plans to launch the Martian Moons Exploration spacecraft to collect and bring back samples from the Martian moon Phobos.

Russia is scheduled the first crewed flight of Orel, the replacement for the crewed Soyuz spacecraft.

The first Indian crewed spaceflight, Gaganyaan 3, is planned for 2024.

What do you think will happen? What will be successful? Let us know your thoughts! Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and come back for more content such as this.