Deep space exploration, or solar system missions, with spacecraft as the tool probing the distant regions of outer space, aims to investigate the celestial body except Earth, i.e. the moon and beyond, along with the space environment. The year of 2018 marked the global flourishing deep space activities. China CE-4 probe achieved the historic touchdown on the far side of the moon, and will patrol on lunar surface. NASA InSight mission successfully landed on Mars to study in-depth the "inner space" of the red planet. The joint ESAJAXA Bepi-Colombo mission is on the way to Mercury. And NASA Parker solar probe will be the first-ever mission to "touch" the Sun. In the opposite direction, New Horizons mission made the asteroid Ultima Thule flyby located in Kuiper belt. Voyager 2 reached the heliopause, breaking out of the solar system. And the asteroid missions, both OSIRIS-Rex and Hayabusa-2 respectively from NASA and JAXA, arrived at their own target objects. The discoveries, like water ice found on moon, organic molecules found in Mars, and the information about the boundary where the solar system essentially ends, are of great importance to the exploration of origin of life, origin and evolution of solar system, and to the advancing of human's knowledge.

deep space exploration  /  2018 hotspot  /  space science  /  discovery