Stunning, Amazing, Surreal: NASA's Best Photos This 2016

This illustration released on Sept. 15, 2016 shows a glowing stream of material from a star, disrupted as it was being devoured by a supermassive black hole.

Earth at night

The green veils and curtains of an aurora that spans thousands of kilometers over Quebec, Canada.

Astronauts on the International Space Station captures a series of incredible star trail images on Oct. 3, 2016, as they orbit at more than 28,000 kilometers per hour.

The Soyuz MS-02 rocket is launched on Oct. 19, 2016, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at "Namib Dune."

Experts with Orion in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Welders inside a large liquid hydrogen tank for NASA's Space Launch System at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans are plugging holes left after the tank was assembled.

ESA astronaut Tim Peake captures this selfie with Earth reflected in his visor during his spacewalk, Jan. 15, 2016.

These stunning images show a year in the life of America's space agency NASA. The photos ranging from far-flung corners of the universe to Earth-bound sights reveal rocket launches to material from a star being devoured by a supermassive black hole, and selfies taken both by British astronaut Tim Peake and the Mars Rover.

Credit: China Daily