The 100 Best Space Photos of 2016

Space Station Flies Over Roman Ruins

Miguel Claro/www.miguelclaro.com

The International Space Station flies over the Roman city of Ammaia in this image taken by astrophotographer Miguel Claro in the summer of 2015. Read the full story here.

Star Trails Light Up Utah Desert

Chris Pruzenski

The image is a time-lapse of Corona arch, which is located on a hiking trail near the Colorado River about 20 minutes south of Moab. It’s located right in between Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Parks. Read the full story here.

Star Trails and a Green Aurora

Deepanshu Arora | PhotosByDeepanshu

Star trails and a green aurora shine in this image taken by Deepanshu Arora at Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park. Read the full story here.

Aurora from Space

ESA/NASA

This is a view of a beautiful aurora as seen from the International Space Station. The bright pink, green and blue lights of the aurora dance over the Pacific Northwest, creating not only a spectacular light show for those on Earth, but for those on the space station, too. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and ESA astronaut Tim Peake shared a series of aurora photographs on Twitter that were taken during their stay on the orbiting lab, including this photo.

Milky Way and 5 Planets Dance in the Night Sky

Matt Smith

The Milky Way and five planets in one stunning image took some patience, but paid off handsomely for skywatcher Matt Smith. The image was taken from Carthage, Texas on February 10. Read the full story here.

'Alien World' on Earth

Jeff Dai

Astrophotographer Jeff Dai took this self-portrait in the Himalayan mountains of Tibet, China, on Oct. 7. Read the full story here.

Midnight-Blue Milky Way

Barbara Matthews

Barbara Matthews took this image the first week of August from Donner Summit, a mountaintop on the northern Sierra Nevada range. Read the full story here.

Heart-Shaped Sunspot

John Chumack | www.galacticimages.com

Astrophotographer John Chumack. captured the heart-shaped sunspot from his backyard Observatory in Dayton, Ohio on April 12. Read the full story here.

Supermoon Over Washington DC

NASA/Joel Kowsky

A nearly full supermoon rises over Washington D.C. in this photo by NASA photographer Joel Kowsky taken on Nov. 13.

Perseid Meteor Streaks Through Bryce Canyon National Park

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

A Perseid meteor streaks across the sky left of the hoodoo named Thor's Hammer early on August 13, 2016 in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah.

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Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.