The final frontier is an endlessly beautiful expanse full of unimaginable wonders, the perfect sandbox for photographers, observatories, and space telescopes to capture stunning images that we can hardly imagine. 2025 was no exception.
This year, we feature a variety of surprising space images, from eye-catching portraits of alien comets and planetary parades to Vera C. Rubin’s first photographs and otherworldly animal lookalikes. Here are 10 of our absolute favorites.
Alien visitor transforms into a “cosmic rainbow”
The biggest space news of the year is undoubtedly the arrival of the third interstellar object in history, 3I/ATLAS, which has dominated headlines and astronomers’ attention since it was first spotted zipping through our solar system in early July. As a result, there was no shortage of amazing shots of alien comets.
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Our favorite is this time-lapse image taken by the Gemini North telescope atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano. This image was created by combining 16 different photos using multiple colored filters to create a giant cosmic rainbow.
Read more: Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS turns into a giant ‘cosmic rainbow’ in bizarre new telescope images
“The Fall of Icarus”
One of the most incredible photos of 2025 was this solar spectacle known as the Fall of Icarus, which perfectly captured the moment a skydiver fell directly in front of the sun.
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy took this shot in early November at a distance of about 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) from skydiver YouTuber Gabriel C. Brown. It took six attempts to properly align the thrill-seeking Brown with the sun’s plane before he jumped from the propeller-powered skiff at an altitude of about 3,500 feet (1,070 meters).
“It took several tries to line up the shot because the field of view was so narrow,” McCarthy told Live Science. “I’m no stranger to photographing the sun, but this added new challenges.”
Read more: Astrophotographer takes ‘absolutely ridiculous’ photo of skydiver ‘falling’ over the surface of the sun
Vera C. Rubin’s Star Flow
In June, the most powerful digital camera on the planet flashed on. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert released its first-ever images in June. These debut photos were chock-full of cosmic treasures, including spiral galaxy M61 (shown here). Researchers noticed that this galaxy, M61, was following the tail of a huge star, about the size of the Milky Way.
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We can expect many more mesmerizing shots in the coming years as Rubin begins a decade-long survey of the night sky.
Read more: Vera Rubin Observatory’s first images reveal hidden structures leading up to the Milky Way trailing behind nearby galaxies
Perfect Planet Parade Portrait
From late January to early February, up to six of the solar system’s planets were visible in the night sky simultaneously in a phenomenon astronomers call a “planet parade.” This special parade was one of the best in recent years, and astrophotographers were able to capture some great photos of the event.
Our favorite is this portrait of the planet by French astrophotographer Gwenaël Blanc. He has digitally edited this to show each planet aligned with the Sun in order of distance from Earth. Blank captured each world in less than 80 minutes.
Read more: Parisian photographer creates stunning, perfectly proportioned ‘planetary parade’ portraits
Huge “diamond ring” shines under X-rays
It’s not just gold that shines. High-energy X-rays shine like giant rings in this shimmering starscape released in November.
The object, called the Diamond Ring, is an expanding bubble of gas in the star-forming region of Cygnus. The glowing bubble is about 20 light years in diameter and about 400,000 years old. This photo was taken by NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which previously scanned the night sky from a telescope aboard a Boeing 747SP aircraft at an altitude of more than 45,000 feet (13,700 m).
Cosmic rings should not be confused with Einstein’s rings, which are rings of light created by gravitational lenses.
Read more: Giant “diamond ring” sparkles in the constellation Cygnus, 4,500 light years away
Space butterfly spreads its wings
JWST once again captured some amazing photos in 2025, including a fiery cigar galaxy, a tantruming toddler, and a “starry mountaintop” nebula. But our favorite is this striking portrait of a “butterfly star”, IRAS 04302+2247.
The insect impostor’s glowing wings are made from tiny nebulae of stellar material left over from a supernova explosion. The nebula is bisected by a protoplanetary disk that surrounds the baby star like a cosmic cocoon, which happens to be in line with Earth, so the two halves of the nebula can be seen edge-on. It is located about 525 light-years away in a star-forming region known as the Taurus Molecular Cloud.
Read more: James Webb telescope discovers distorted ‘butterfly star’ shedding its pupa
Mount Arsia rises
Speaking of Mars, NASA’s Mars Odyssey rover also captured this stunning shot of a giant extinct volcano peeking out above the Martian clouds as an eerie green light dances across the Martian horizon.
The mountain in the image is Mount Arsia, which rises more than 12 miles (19 km) above the surface of the former volcanic Tharsis Plateau. This extinct volcano is more than twice as tall as Mount Everest, but about 6 kilometers (4 miles) shorter than Mars’ highest peak, Olympus Mons.
The green light looks like an aurora. But they’re actually just the effects of images partially captured using infrared light emanating from the planet’s wispy atmosphere.
Read more: NASA breaks through morning clouds to discover Martian volcano twice the height of Mount Everest
Seen in “Eye of Sauron”
No one can escape the malevolent gaze of the Dark Lord of Mordor, even from the other side of the universe. That’s the impression given by this photo, dubbed “The Eye of Sauron,” a playful reference to J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings.
The “eye” is actually the magnetic field of a supercharged jet of energy launched into space by a quasar (the supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy). This quasar, called PKS 1424+240, lies billions of light-years from Earth and has one of its jets aimed almost directly at Earth, allowing researchers to peer directly through its “jet cone” and map the magnetic vortices inside.
Read more: 15 years of amazing time-lapse photos of the giant cosmic ‘Eye of Sauron’ staring directly at us
A new pillar of “heaven” appears
This fantastic image shows a series of stellar structures reminiscent of the famous Pillars of Creation, first observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. The structure is named Ua Ohia Lani, which means “heavenly rain” in Hawaiian, and the image was taken by the Gemini North Telescope.
What you’re looking at are two different areas. The shimmering blue stars of a cluster named NGC 6823 overlap a veil of red gas that makes up a more distant diffuse nebula called NGC 6820. This ethereal column is created from additional gas and dust carved out by the intense radiation of the foreground star.
The original Pillars of Creation were also recently glowed up by JWST, which used infrared light to capture the iconic cosmic structure.
Read more: “Heavenly Rain”: an etheric structure in the sky comparable to the “Pillars of Creation”
Astronaut photographs giant jellyfish on Earth
Pointing your camera into space is incredible, but space also offers a unique angle of our own planet. And that’s exactly the case with our last photo, which shows a giant, electrifying “jellyfish” floating above the Earth.
This light-emitting branching structure was photographed by NASA astronaut Nicole Ayers while aboard the ISS in July. This indicates a type of temporary light-emitting event that researchers commonly refer to as a sprite. In this case, the red jellyfish-like sprites formed on top of a “giant jet” of rare upward-sweeping lightning up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) above the U.S.-Mexico border.
If you liked this photo, be sure to check out Live Science’s weekly Earth from space series for more amazing images of our planet from above.
Read more: Astronauts capture giant red ‘jellyfish’ sprite over North America during upward lightning event
Want more amazing images of the universe? Be sure to check out Live Science’s Space Photo of the Week series. Or take a peek at our favorite space photos from 2024 and this gallery of stunning images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
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