LOOKING BACK, GAZING UP

2024 was remarkable for many reasons. Not least of which being that the number 2024 is the sum of eleven non-consecutive integers. For those who have any idea what that means, you can celebrate the special significance of the number. As for the rest of us, let’s see what else made this year an interesting one.

Japan’s moon landing in January got the year off to an… astronomical… start. The Land of the Rising Sun became the fifth recorded country to execute a soft landing on the moon. The stats didn’t say exactly what a hard landing is, or how many countries have succeeded in that regard (if “succeeded” is the word for it). It was exactly 55 years since Neil Armstrong’s trip, but this time around no one seems to be asking whether it was all staged in a basement somewhere.

2024 was also a year in which a solar eclipse was visible from North America. It happened in April, and little did the USA know that a larger Force of Nature was on its way. It landed in November following a tense election process… but let’s not get into politics.

This year also saw an unusual spate of solar storms and solar flares. Not sure what that suggests on a cosmic level, but it sounded significant enough to mention. We also had the so-called “comet of the century” coming closer to Earth than it’s ever been. If you’d rather get onto a first-name basis, its official title is CC/2023 A3. Speaking of names, a guy named Jared Isaacman experienced the first commercial spacewalk this year. So, there’s a new travel option for anyone who’s getting bored with Margate and Mauritius.

We also got our first close-up image of a star outside of the Milky Way galaxy, courtesy of the appropriately named Very Large Telescope (or VLT).

So far, this retrospective celebration of 2024 probably reads like a meteorological report. That’s basically due to the fact that it’s far more peaceful to gaze up into space. Because let’s face it… it’s been a wild and crazy year here on Earth.

That aforementioned Force of Nature that won the US elections claimed the victory not long after being found guilty on 34 counts. He got the White House job nonetheless, in a year that included floods and landslides, armed conflict and protest action. It was a turbulent one to say the least - and it’s not even over yet.

But on the positive side, 2024 gave us the Olympic Games and Paralympics that lit up the city of Paris. We had sporting victories that made us proud. No less than 80 countries held democratic elections. And one of those ended in a historical moment as Mexico voted in its first female president.

So, how do we sum it up in words? Well, it’s been announced that 2024’s Word of the Year is “demure”, based on a whole thing on TikTok that’s too complicated to explain here. But it’s part of a now-famous phrase that went “very demure, very mindful”. And maybe that’s a good thing to be - mindful of where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going when 2025 rolls around. How’s that for ending on an inspirational note?

Besides, it’s way better than the two runners-up for Word of the Year: “brainrot” and “brat”. Aren’t you glad they didn’t make the grade?