The Best Space Photos of 2016

  • London at midnight, Jan. 30, 2016.
    Tim Peake—ESA/NASA
    1 of 32
  • This image combines an image taken with Hubble Space Telescope in the optical (taken in spring 2014) and observations of its auroras in the ultraviolet, taken in 2016.
    NASA/ESA
    2 of 32
  • This image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows Trumpler 14, a glittering star cluster that contains a collection of some of the brightest stars seen in our Milky Way galaxy, Jan. 21, 2016.
    J. Maíz Apellániz—Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, Spain/ESA/NASA
    3 of 32
  • The full moon rises just before sunset, over western China, June 21, 2016.
    Jeff Williams—NASA
    4 of 32
  • This NASA photo obtained Dec. 14, 2016 shows an image taken by Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys Kounotori H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-6) as it approached the International Space Station on Dec. 12, 2016.
    NASA/AFP/Getty Images
    5 of 32
  • This false-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows clouds in Saturn's northern hemisphere, July 20, 2016.
    Kevin M. Gill—NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
    6 of 32
  • The Milky Way is observed behind a lookout tower near the Hungarian border village of Tachty, or Tajti in Hungarian, Slovakia, Aug. 28, 2016.
    Peter Komka—EPA
    7 of 32
  • A maelstrom of glowing gas and dark dust within one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, Sept. 5, 2016.
    ESA/Hubble Space Telescope/NASA
    8 of 32
  • Election Day 2016 aboard the space station. Thanks to a bill passed by Texas legislators that put in place technical voting procedure for astronauts, they have the ability to vote from space through specially designed absentee ballots.
    NASA
    9 of 32
  • A Wolf–Rayet star, known as WR 31a, located about 30 000 light-years away in the constellation of Carina (The Keel), Feb. 22, 2016.
    ESA/Hubble Space Telescope/NASA
    10 of 32
  • Running Man Nebula, Jan. 8, 2016.
    Adam Block—Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
    11 of 32
  • An image of the Milky Way, released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy. The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere for the first time at submillimetre wavelengths.
    ESO/APEX/ATLASGAL consortium/NASA/GLIMPSE consortium/ESA/Planck
    12 of 32
  • An all-sky view of stars in our Galaxy – the Milky Way – and neighboring galaxies, based on the first year of observations from ESA’s Gaia satellite, from July 2014 to Sept. 2015. Released Sept. 14, 2016.
    ESA/Gaia/DPAC
    13 of 32
  • Moonrise on the International Space Station, taken by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins.
    Kate Rubins—NASA
    14 of 32
  • The moon covers the sun, leaving a ring of fire effect around the moon, during an annular solar eclipse, seen in Saint-Louis, on the Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, on Sept. 1, 2016.
    Richard Bouhet—AFP/Getty Images
    15 of 32
  • The 2,980-mile-wide Cassini Division in Saturn's rings on the sunlit side of the rings from about 4 degrees above the ring plane, Jan. 28, 2016.
    NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
    16 of 32
  • The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, released all of the data from its Kayuga spacecraft in Oct. 2016 showing images of the Earth captured from the moons surface.
    JAXA/NHK
    17 of 32
  • Bright, frosty polar caps, and clouds above a vivid, rust-colored landscape reveal Mars as a dynamic seasonal planet, May 12, 2016.
    NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)/J. Bell (ASU)/M. Wolff (Space Science Institute)
    18 of 32
  • This image of the Orion Nebula star-formation region was obtained from multiple exposures using the HAWK-I infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.
    ESO/H. Drass et al.
    19 of 32
  • Bystanders watch a solar total eclipse through cloudy conditions in Palembang on March 9, 2016.
    Abdul Qodir—AFP/Getty Images
    20 of 32
  • The Richat Structure or “Bulls Eye” in Mauritania, June 30, 2016.
    Jeff Williams—NASA
    21 of 32
  • This photo released on Nov. 17, 2016 shows shows the Ariane 5 rocket with a payload of four Galileo satellites lifting off from ESA's European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
    S. Martin—AFP/ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE
    22 of 32
  • The central region of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, containing the R136 star cluster which contains hundreds of young blue stars, among them the most massive star detected in the universe so far, March 17, 2016.
    P Crowther—University of Sheffield/NASA/ESA
    23 of 32
  • A nearly full moon rises above the Valley of the Gods near Mexican Hat, Utah, on Nov. 13, 2016.
    Jim Lo Scalzo—EPA
    24 of 32
  • Pink light from the Veggie experiment illuminates the Columbus module aboard the International Space Station on Dec. 1, 2016.
    NASA
    25 of 32
  • Milky Way rising over the horizon, June 6, 2016.
    Tim Peake—ESA/NASA
    26 of 32
  • A newly formed star lights up the surrounding cosmic clouds in this image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Dust particles in the vast clouds that surround the star HD 97300 diffuse its light, like a car headlight in enveloping fog, and create the reflection nebula IC 2631. Feb. 10, 2016.
    ESO
    27 of 32
  • This picture, taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), shows NGC 4696, the largest galaxy in the Centaurus Cluster, released Dec. 1, 2016.
    NASA, ESA/Hubble, A. Fabian
    28 of 32
  • Green lights from night fishing boats in Thailand, March 17, 2016.
    Tim Peake—ESA/NASA
    29 of 32
  • The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is an emission nebula located 8000 light-years away, image released on April 21, 2016.
    NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team
    30 of 32
  • An aurora over northern Canada, Jan. 20, 2016.
    Tim Peake—ESA/NASA
    31 of 32
  • The Orbital ATK Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard, is seen on launch Pad-0A as the moon sets, predawn, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, on Oct. 15, 2016.
    Bill Ingalls—NASA
    32 of 32
By TIME Photo and Kim Bubello
December 16, 2016 3:48 PM EST

2016 was a year full of new discoveries and beautiful imagery coming from our universe. We saw new images of Saturn’s rings and even of the surface of our own moon. We got a deeper look into the structure of one of the brightest galaxies, and witnessed stunning views taken from multiple astronauts from the NASA, ESA, JAXA agencies as they circled our planet aboard the International Space Station.

TIME’s photo editors select the best and most stunning space images of this year.

More Must-Read Stories From TIME

Write to Kim Bubello at kim.bubello@time.com.

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