‘Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.’
— Edwin Hubble, The Nature of Science, 1954
The year of 2016 was full of new discoveries andimagery coming from our universe. There were new photos of Saturn’s rings displayed along with the surface of our own moon. This year people got a chance to have a closer and deeper look into the structure of one of the brightest galaxies and witness the most amazing views taken from multiple astronauts from the NASA, ESA and JAXA agencies. Here are the most spectacular images of this going away year:
The full moon rises just before sunset, over western China, June 21, 2016.
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.
The Milky Way is observed behind a lookout tower near the Hungarian border village of Tachty, or Tajti in Hungarian, Slovakia, Aug. 28, 2016.
A maelstrom of glowing gas and dark dust within one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, Sept. 5, 2016.
Moonrise on the International Space Station, taken by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins.
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.
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.
Bystanders watch a solar total eclipse through cloudy conditions in Palembang on March 9, 2016.
The Richat Structure or “Bulls Eye” in Mauritania, June 30, 2016.
A nearly full moon rises above the Valley of the Gods near Mexican Hat, Utah, on Nov. 13, 2016.
Milky Way rising over the horizon, June 6, 2016.
The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is an emission nebula located 8000 light-years away, image released on April 21, 2016.
source: time