Year In Pictures click orange bar
Though astronauts and cosmonauts often encounter striking scenes of Earth's limb, this rare image has the added feature of a silhouette of the space shuttle Endeavour. The photograph was captured by an International Space Station crew member during the shuttle's approach on Feb. 9. The orange layer is Earth's troposphere, where the planet's weather and clouds are contained. This orange layer gives way to the whitish stratosphere and then the mesosphere.
(NASA)
Backdropped by Earth's horizon and the blackness of space, the International Space Station is featured in this photograph, taken Feb. 9 from the space shuttle Endeavour as it approached the station for docking. (NASA)
Astronaut Nicholas Patrick works on the International Space Station's new observation deck, known as the Cupola, during a Feb. 17 spacewalk. The seven-window Cupola provides the best view of Earth from the orbital outpost. (NASA)
The underside of the space shuttle Discovery is visible in this view from the International Space Station, captured soon after the shuttle and station separated on April 17. The recognizable feature on Earth below is the south end of Isla de Providencia, about 150 miles off the coast of Nicaragua. The island belongs to Colombia. (NASA
The space shuttle Atlantis is docked to the International Space Station in orbit on May 17. Atlantis delivered a new Russian compartment and fresh batteries during its 12-day mission. The shuttle fleet is scheduled to be retired in 2011.(NASA / Getty Images)
Clouds pass over Papua New Guinea's Manam Volcano on June 16, just as a thin, blue-gray volcanic plume issues from the summit. The bright white clouds may result from water vapor from the volcano, or they may be unrelated to the volcanic activity. This picture was captured by an imager aboard NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellte, also known as EO-1. (NASA Earth Observatory)
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane is hooked underneath its White Knight Two carrier aircraft for a landing during Spaceport America's runway dedication ceremony near Las Cruces, N.M., on Oct. 22. SpaceShipTwo is slated to begin taking paying passengers to the edge of outer space from Spaceport America sometime in the next couple of years. (Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images)
The island of Sicily and the boot of Italy sparkle with lights in this orbital view, captured from the International Space Station's Cupola observatory on Oct. 28. The 30-inch (80-centimeter) diameter of the Cupola's circular top window makes it the largest window ever in space, while six additional side windows open the view to all directions. (AFP - Getty Images)
NASA's Deep Space / EPOXI probe sent back this picture of Comet Hartley 2's nucleus on Nov. 4, during a flyby that brought the probe within 435 miles (700 kilometers) of the peanut-shaped object. The nucleus is approximately 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) long and 400 meters (a quarter-mile) wide at the "neck," or most narrow portion. Jets can be seen streaming out of the nucleus (NASA / JPL-Caltech / UMD via Getty Images)
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off on Dec. 8 from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The mission marked the maiden outing for SpaceX's Dragon orbital space capsule, which is being developed to resupply the International Space Station once NASA retires the shuttle fleet. The gumdrop-shaped Dragon successfully parachuted to a splashdown in the Pacific after making two orbits.(Bruce Weaver / AFP - Getty Images)
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