IC 2118: The Witch Head Nebula

Jupiter as seen by Juno

This is a real, unprocessed photo from Cassini spacecraft.

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The lightest known star, OTS 44

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Our Most “Liked” Instagram Posts of 2016

Our Instagram page has over 1,800 images and is lucky enough to be followed by more than 18 million fans.

What images and videos were your favorite from this past year? Great question, and one we asked ourselves too! 

Here’s a look at our most liked Instagram posts* of 2016…Enjoy!

#10

Colorful “last hurrah’ of a star: The Hubble Space Telescope shows off the colorful “last hurrah” of a star like our sun. The star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star’s remaining core. With 513,672 likes, this image is our 10th most liked of 2016.

#9

Vivid glowing auroras in Jupiter’s atmosphere! Astronomers are using the Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras – stunning light shows in a planet’s atmosphere – on the poles of the largest planet in the solar system. This image ranks #9 for 2016 with 515,339 likes.

#8

Astronomers found evidence for what is likely one of the most extreme pulsars, or rotating neutron stars, ever detected. The source exhibits properties of a highly magnetized neutron star, or magnetar, yet its deduced spin period is thousands of times longer than any pulsar ever observed. With 517,995 likes, this picture ranks #8 for 2016.

#7

Fiery South Atlantic Sunset! An astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed a sunset that looks like a vast sheet of flame. With Earth’s surface already in darkness, the setting sun, the cloud masses, and the sideways viewing angle make a powerful image of the kind that astronauts use to commemorate their flights. This image ranks #7 for 2016 with 520,553 likes.

#6

Go floating! Join us for a fly-through of the International Space Station! This footage was shot using a fisheye lens for extreme focus and depth of field. This video ranks as our sixth most liked Instagram post of 2016 with 541,418 likes.

#5

This #BlackFriday post helped us celebrate our 4th annual #BlackHoleFriday! Each year we pose awesome content about black holes on the Black Friday shopping holiday. A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out. With 549,910 likes, this image ranks #5 for 2016.

#4

A cluster of young stars – about one to two million years old – located about 20,000 light years from Earth. Data in visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope (green and blue) reveal thick clouds where the stars are forming. This image ranks #4 for 2016 with 573,002 likes.

#3

Supermoon is a spectacular sight! The Nov. 14 supermoon was especially “super” because it was the closest full moon to Earth since 1948. We won’t see another supermoon like this until 2034. Which might have something to do with this image ranking #3 for 2016 with 695,343 likes.

#2

Supermoon seen from space! Aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson posted this image on Dec. 14 captured by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. This stunning image ranks #2 for 2016 with 704,530 likes.

#1

It’s a bird, it’s a plane…no, it’s a #supermoon! The moon, or supermoon, is seen rising behind the Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad in Kazakhstan ahead of the November crew launch to the International Space Station. This photo was our #1 image of 2016 with 746,981 likes.

Thanks for joining us as we traveled through the space events of 2016. We’re looking forward to all of the interstellar fun that 2017 will bring. Happy Holidays!

Do you want to get amazing images of Earth from space, see distant galaxies and more on Instagram? Of course you do! Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/nasa/

*Posts and rankings are were taken as of Dec. 21, 2016.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

This is true and sad.

The Milkyway over the Himalayas.

Bright Spiral Galaxy M81 : One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earths sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful M81. The grand spiral galaxy can be found toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear . This superbly detailed image reveals M81s bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, tell tale pinkish star forming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes with a scale comparable to the Milky Way. Hinting at a disorderly past, a remarkable dust lane actually runs straight through the disk, to the left of the galactic center, contrary to M81s other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lane may be the lingering result of a close encounter between between M81 and its smaller companion galaxy, M82. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded one of the best determined distances for an external galaxy 11.8 million light-years. M81s dwarf companion galaxy Holmberg IX can be seen just above the large spiral. via NASA

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