Science today has the ability to inform and amaze us in ways that we hardly dared to dream about when we were younger. The past year alone has seen so many moments of surpassing wonder in the realms of physics, chemistry, and biology, that it's almost impossible to sum them up fairly on one page. So, instead, let's celebrate the achievements of 2016 by looking at these astonishing 21 images of the scientific year.
Click on images to enlarge
An icy ocean from 1,500 feet in the air
The tail feathers of a 99 million year old dinosaur, preserved in amber
The Sahara desert photographed from the International Space Station
Valleys on the planet Mars
Curiosity Mars rover taking a selfie
Astronauts prepare to land by parachute in Kazakhstan
The newly discovered newt, known as Tylototriton anguliceps
X-ray image of an extreme pulsar (rotating neutron star)
Microbeads magnified from a common eyeliner product
Ants eating colored sugar
The Milky Way at 4,400m in the Himalayas
A fan throated lizard protecting its territory
The Crab Nebula, formed from a star that exploded 2,600 years ago
The newly discovered Phuket horned tree agamid
A Greenland Shark, recently found to be the longest-living vertebrates (up to 400 years old)
Many small clusters orbiting a lenticular galaxy: each cluster contains hundreds of thousands of stars
The magnified end of a diving beetle's leg
Sandhill cranes resting from their Siberia to Mexico migration during a storm
Earth's lights and lightning from the International Space Station
Tiger Shark in the Bahamas
A radio-frequency image of our universe, from a radio telescope in Australia
