A disk of hot gas swirls around a black hole in this illustration from Dec. 20, 2022. A long stream of hot gas on the right, coming from a star that was pulled apart by the black hole, feeds into the disk. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pia25440-orig-iotd.jpg)

The spectacular aurora borealis, or the “northern lights,” over Canada is sighted from the space station near the highest point of its orbital path. The station’s main solar arrays are seen in the left foreground. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/iss053e023965orig.jpg)

A model of the Mariner-C spacecraft at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center for a June 1964 Conference on New Technology. Mariner-C and Mariner-D were identical spacecraft designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to flyby Mars and photograph the Martian surface. Mariner-C was launched on November 4, 1964, but the payload shroud did not jettison properly and the spacecraft’s battery power did not function. The mission ended unsuccessfully two days later. Mariner-D was launched as designed on November 28, 1964 and became the first successful mission to Mars. It was the first time a planet was photographed from space. Mariner-D’s 21 photographs revealed an inhospitable and barren landscape. The two Mariner spacecraft were launched by Atlas-Agena-D rockets. Lewis had taken over management of the Agena Program in October 1962. There had been five failures and two partial failures in the 17 Agena launches before being taken over by NASA Lewis. Lewis, however, oversaw 28 successful Agena missions between 1962 and 1968, including several Rangers and the Mariner Venus '67. (https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/GRC-1964-C-70182/GRC-1964-C-70182~orig.jpg)

The sun's first rays begin illuminating Earth's atmosphere in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 260 miles above the central United States. At far left, the city lights of Chicago, Illinois, are outlined by Lake Michigan. At far right, the city lights of the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area shine through the clouds. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/53332473614-7e5c400698-o.jpg)

A cluster brimming with millions of stars glistens like an iridescent opal in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Called Omega Centauri, the sparkling orb of stars is like a miniature galaxy. It is the biggest and brightest of the 150 or so similar objects, called globular clusters, that orbit around the outside of our Milky Way galaxy. Stargazers at southern latitudes can spot the stellar gem with the naked eye in the constellation Centaurus. Globular clusters are some of the oldest objects in our universe. Their stars are over 12 billion years old, and, in most cases, formed all at once when the universe was just a toddler. Omega Centauri is unusual in that its stars are of different ages and possess varying levels of metals, or elements heavier than boron. Astronomers say this points to a different origin for Omega Centauri than other globular clusters: they think it might be the core of a dwarf galaxy that was ripped apart and absorbed by our Milky Way long ago. In this new view of Omega Centauri, Spitzer's infrared observations have been combined with visible-light data from the National Science Foundation's Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Visible-light data with a wavelength of .55 microns is colored blue, 3.6-micron infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera is colored green and 24-micron infrared light taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer is colored red. Where green and red overlap, the color yellow appears. Thus, the yellow and red dots are stars revealed by Spitzer. These stars, called red giants, are more evolved, larger and dustier. The stars that appear blue were spotted in both visible and 3.6-micron-, or near-, infrared light. They are less evolved, like our own sun. Some of the red spots in the picture are distant galaxies beyond our own. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/spiders.jpg)

If spacecraft are to visit the outer solar system, they must cross the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The Pioneer mission was faced with the question of just how dangerous this asteroid belt would be to a spacecraft passing through it. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/arc-1974-ac73-9344orig.jpg)

The Moon, left, Saturn, upper right, and Jupiter, lower right, are seen after sunset from Washington, DC, Thurs. Dec. 17, 2020. The two planets drew closer to each other in the sky as they headed towards a “great conjunction” on Dec. 21, where the two giant planets appeared a tenth of a degree apart. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/nhq202012170001orig.jpg)

The mated Russian-built Zarya (left) and U.S.-built Unity modules are backdropped against the blackness of space and Earth's horizon shortly after leaving Endeavour's cargo bay. The photo was taken with an electronic still camera at 21:20:21 GMT, Dec. 13. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/s88e5157orig.jpg)

Artemis II NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (left) and Christina Koch (middle) of NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen (second from left) view the core stage for the Space Launch System rocket at the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on Nov. 16. The three astronauts, along with NASA’s Victor Glover, will launch atop the rocket stage to venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed flight for Artemis. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/maf-20231116-cs2-astronautvisit02orig.jpg)

This striking image shows the densely packed globular cluster known as NGC 2210, which is situated in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The LMC lies about 157 000 light-years from Earth, and is a so-called satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, meaning that the two galaxies are gravitationally bound. Globular clusters are very stable, tightly bound clusters of thousands or even millions of stars. Their stability means that they can last a long time, and therefore globular clusters are often studied in order to investigate potentially very old stellar populations. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/cluster-in-the-cloud.jpg)

Astronaut Kathryn C. Thornton works with equipment associated with servicing chores on the Hubble Space Telescope during the fourth spacewalk on the eleven-day mission. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/sts061-098-0korig.jpg)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s new view of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) in near-infrared light is giving astronomers hints at the dynamical processes occurring within the supernova remnant. Tiny clumps represented in bright pink and orange make up the supernova’s inner shell, and are comprised of sulfur, oxygen, argon, and neon from the star itself. A large, striated blob at the bottom right corner of the image, nicknamed Baby Cas A, is one of the few light echoes visible NIRCam’s field of view. In this image, red, green, and blue were assigned to Webb’s NIRCam data at 4.4, 3.56, and 1.62 microns (F444W, F356W, and F162M, respectively). (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/53389652123-d38edbe3d7-o.png)

Artemis II crew members, shown inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, stand in front of their Orion crew module on Aug. 8, 2023. From left are: Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist; Victor Glover, pilot; Reid Wiseman, commander; and Christina Hammock Koch, mission specialist. The crew module is undergoing acoustic testing ahead of integration with the European Service Module. Artemis II is the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term lunar presence for science and exploration under Artemis. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ksc-20230808-ph-kls02-0098orig.jpg)

Orville Wright makes the first powered, controlled flight on Earth as his brother Wilbur looks on in this image taken at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on Dec. 17, 1903. Orville Wright covered 120 feet in 12 seconds during the first flight. The Wright brothers made four flights that day, each longer than the last. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/pia24434orig.jpg)

This composite image shows the Christmas Tree Cluster. The blue and white lights (which blink in the animated version of this image) are young stars that give off X-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Optical data from the National Science Foundation’s WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak shows gas in the nebula in green, corresponding to the “pine needles” of the tree, and infrared data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows foreground and background stars in white. This image has been rotated clockwise by about 160 degrees from the astronomer’s standard of North pointing upward, so that it appears like the top of the tree is toward the top of the image. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ngc2264.jpg)

At the start of October 2023, green conifers and golden aspen covered the slopes of Monroe Mountain in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. Then, starting on October 9, these forests turned black as fire worked its way across the mountain. Flames and smoke were visible for miles. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/firesensefire-pho-2023282-lrg.jpg)

Artemis II crew members: CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, left, NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman, right, pose for a group photograph after their meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. During their mission, the Artemis II crew will travel aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft on a 10-day mission around the Moon, testing spacecraft systems for the first time with astronauts for long-term exploration and scientific discovery. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/nhq202312140006orig.jpg)

Four reindeer walk past the BARREL payload on the launch pad at Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden. The BARREL team was at Esrange Space Center launching a series of six scientific payloads on miniature scientific balloons. The NASA-funded BARREL – which stands for Balloon Array for Radiation-belt Relativistic Electron Losses – primarily measured X-rays in Earth’s atmosphere near the North and South Poles. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/gsfc-20171208-archive-e000249orig.jpg)

Seen here by Webb, ice giant Uranus is a dynamic world with rings, moons, storms, extreme seasons, and more. Webb’s sensitivity has even captured the close-in Zeta ring, faint, diffuse, and elusive.

These new images reveal detailed features of Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap, as well as bright storms near and below the southern border of the cap. If humans want to send a spacecraft to visit Uranus up close, it’s necessary to understand how to navigate debris from its rings. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/53404881117-64e0071ca0-o.png)

Creating an artistic reflection, a Great Blue Heron skims its wings on a waterway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 11, 2021. The center shares a border with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ksc-20210111-ph-jbs01-0072orig.jpg)