The best science images

NASA’s New Horizons probe won headlines and hearts this year as it sent back pictures of Pluto from the edges of the Solar System. But NASA scientists were not the only ones with images for us to wonder over. Animals at war, shock waves made visible and close-ups of objects normally beyond the limits of our vision were among the shots that caught the eye of Nature’s art team.

REPTILE WARFARE
The biggest lizards on Earth — Komodo dragons — stage brutal fights over territory in Indonesia. This shot of such a bout was a finalist in the 201!5 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

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SUPERSONIC BOOM
The shock waves generated by a US jet moving at supersonic speed were imaged from another plane above the Mojave Desert. NASA researchers exploited a technique called schlieren photography, first developed in the nineteenth century by German physicist August Toepler, to capture changes in light as the jet passed through air of different densities.

MAGELLANIC MAGIC
The Planck satellite provided a fresh view of the Large Magellanic Cloud (dark dots, centre) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (bottom left) — two galaxies close to our own Milky Way. The image uses data captured at microwave and sub-millimetre wavelengths.

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