For a brief moment in 2025, a falling human figure appeared to cut across the surface of the sun, a shot captured by astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy that echoed the myth of Icarus in real time. Elsewhere, a visitor from beyond the solar system traced a rainbow through the dark, and distant galaxies revealed structures shaped long before Earth existed. Drawn from Live Science’s selection of the year’s most striking space photography, these scenes move from our own atmosphere to the far edges of the observable universe, capturing a year when timing, technology, and chance aligned.
