NASA will this year spend around €171.7 million on cosmic exploration.
But the US space agency might want to rethink their strategy, and take a leaf from Dubliner Dave Grennan’s book who has just discovered his third supernova in four years.
The amateur astronomer did it all from his back garden and made his most recent find was using a telescope he made himself.
Supernovae are the spectacular explosion of a star or sun like ours, caused by a violent collapse of the weight of material being pulled into its orbit.
Stargazer Dave, 42, made his most recent discovery on Good Friday, when he spotted a 170 million-year-old dying sun 100 times the size of ours.
He said: “It was 11pm when I actually got the first look at this and by 1am I was fairly certain and at that time of night there was nothing else for it but a strong cup of tea.
“What excites me about this one this time is the telescope - I built it myself, right down to the polishing of the lenses.”
Mr Grennan, a software developer, has discovered three supernovae or exploding stars over four years.
That is all the more significant as Ireland only averages six to 12 clear skies a month and the nights from May to August are too bright to hunt for the celestial phenomenon.
The latest discovery was confirmed over the weekend by the International Astronomical Union which named it Supernova 2014as.
It was made in a galaxy which at this time of year appears beside the constellation known to most people as the Plough, or Big Dipper.
Mr Grennan said: “You won’t see any trace of this looking with the naked eye, it’s about 100,000 times fainter than what you can see.”
Mr Grennan also made the first discovery of a supernova from Irish soil in 2010.
Two years before he located an asteroid, which he named after his late mother, Catherine Griffin, who encouraged his interest in the stars as a boy.
When Mr Grennan made his second supernova discovery in 2012 he was contacted by Lomonosov Moscow State University which admitted its scientists had failed to pick up on the discovery weeks earlier.
- We’ve taken a look at some of the most significant astronomical discoveries of recent times.
1. Stars orbiting the Milky Way Black Hole
A 16 year long study by a group of researchers led by the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics discovered a star orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
The star approached the central Black Hole to within 17 light-hours – only three times the distance between the Sun and planet Pluto – while travelling at no less than 5000 km/sec.
The team were awarded the Crafoord Prize in Astronomy 2012 for the discovery.
2. Accelerating Universe
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for “the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae.”
In other words, two research teams, through their observations of exploding stars managed to prove that the universe is accelerating.
The prize was split between Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Rises.
3. Oldest known star in the Milky Way
In 2014 scientists at the European Southern Observatory measured the age of the oldest known star in the galaxy.
At 13.2 billion years old, the star was born in the earliest era of star formation in the Universe. Uranium has also been detected in a Milky Way star and used as an independent estimate of the age of the galaxy.
4. A new planetary system
In 2010 a group of astonomers discovered a new planetary system containing at least five planets, orbiting the sun-like star HD10180.
They also came across evidence that there were another two planets present in the newly discovered galaxy, one of which would have the lowest mass ever found.
Christophe Lovis, chief author of the paper reporting the result said: “This remarkable discovery also highlights the fact that we are now entering a new era in exoplanet research: the study of complex planetary systems and not just of individual planets.”
5. First super-Earth atmosphere analysed
An earth-like planet discovered in 2009 had its atmosphere analysed by a group of scientists working at the European Southern Observatory.
The planet, known as GJ 1214b, was found to have an atmosphere consisting mostly of water in the form of steam and which was dominated by thick clouds or hazes.
It is not yet known if the planet is capable of supporting life.