Year-ender 2021: These space pictures of the year will leave you stunned

The SpaceX Starship SN9 explodes into a fireball after its high altitude test flight from test facilities in Boca Chica, Texas.

The full moon, known as the "Super Pink Moon" rises behind the Eiffel Tower during a nationwide curfew due to tighter measures against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Paris, France.

Perseverance's first cored-rock sample of Mars rock is seen inside its titanium container tube in this image taken by the rover's Sampling and Caching System Camera (known as CacheCam).

The surface of Mars directly below NASA's Mars Perseverance rover is seen using the Rover Down-Look Camera in an image acquired on February 22, 2021.

A Russian Soyuz-2.1a rocket with a Fregat upper stage and 38 satellites from 18 countries blasts off from a launchpad during rainfall at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on March 22, 2021.

A long exposure shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Crew Dragon capsule, as it is launched carrying three NASA and one ESA astronauts on a mission to the International Space Station at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-16 cargo spacecraft blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.

The first high-resolution, color image to be sent back by the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) on the underside of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is seen after its landing on Mars.

Wheel tread marks are left in the soil of Jezero Crater on Mars, as NASA's Mars rover Perseverance drives on Martian surface for the first time, in this March 4, 2021 image.

Crew 2 member JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide of Japan is embraced by his compatriot Crew 1 member JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi as he and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet of France are welcomed as they arrive aboard the International Space Station, after docking SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule obiting the earth on April 24, 2021 in a still image from video.