15 of the most mind-blowing photos taken this century (so far)

An entire century has passed since the year 2000 – how time flies! In that timescience and technology have provided us with some amazing things.

Countless missions to spacecures for diseases and a total of 46 different iPhones! But while we could sit here and recount by word the many achievementslet us show you instead.

We've picked out the best and most amazing images of the 21st centuryboth on Earth and further afield.

Best selfie everMont MercouMars

Mont MercouMars - 2021

Launched in 2011NASA’s Curiosity Rover was sent to search for signs that life could have existed on Mars. It has now spent well over a decade on the Red Planetcarrying out experiments with its onboard laboratory.

While Curiosity isn’t heading back to Earth any time soonthe take-home message from its Martian campaign is that the planet once had free-flowing water and the kind of chemistry suitable for supporting lifenamely microbes.

One of Curiosity’s most memorable moments came in 2021when the six-wheeled wanderer took this cheeky selfie while posing on a small outcrop of rock that scientists named Mont Mercouafter the French mountain. It’s perhaps not quite the ‘moment’ that it first appearsthough.

To create the selfiescientists had to composite 60 images taken over two days with two cameras – most by using a robot arm like a selfie stick and the remainder using the ‘Mastcam’ on Curiosity’s head.

Mummified mammoth

The YukonCanada - 2022

This is Nun Cho Gathe only whole baby woolly mammoth to have been discovered in North America (near Dawson CityYukon) to date.

In the Hän language spoken in the region where her mummified remains were foundher name means ‘big baby animal’. Nun Cho Ga was preserved in permafrost for 30,000 years before gold miners found her and handed her over to the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation and Yukon governments.

In 2024she was moved to the Canadian Conservation Institute to be carefully preserved.

Lost in the shadows

America (From the Deep Sea Space Climate Observatory)2024

A total solar eclipse happens only once every year and a halfand not everyone on Earth experiences a total eclipse each time – only those along a band called the ‘path of totality’. This is where the Moon’s shadow tracks briefly across Earth.

On 8 April 2024Americans across 13 US states experienced totality. This image of the Moon’s shadow was captured by the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) housed in the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite. Americasay “Cheese!”.

Out of his head

Singapore – 2017

It’s hard to find any sympathy for fliesbut try to spare a thought for this ill-fated fellowwho has vacated his skull following colonisation by the parasitic ‘zombie fungus’.

Cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) fungi infect and take over the minds of their insect victimswhich are generally antsbut also flies. The fungi don’t seem to infect their victims’ brains directly; insteadthey release mind-controlling molecules to do their bidding.

Infection ends with the hapless insect climbing to the fungus’ ideal sporing heightwhere it bursts through the insect’s skull.

Ghost in the machine

GenevaSwitzerland – 2017

How do you catch a particle that travels at near-light speed and weighs virtually nothing? That’s what this hugegoldwaffle-surfaced box is designed to do.

Constructed between 2016–2018 at the CERN facility in Switzerlandthe Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is one of two prototypes for largerUS-based versions being built to detect fundamental particles called neutrinos (also known as ‘ghost particles’)which originate from the nuclear reactions occurring within stars.

The chamber acts as a Thermos flask for liquid argonwhich boils at very low temperaturesso must be held below -184°C (-299.2°F). It contains detectors that can capture traces of the electrons released when neutrinos hit argon atoms.

While neutrinos don’t interact with much – trillions pass through us every minute with seemingly no effect – the density of atoms in liquid argon makes their interactions easier to sense.

When operationalthe new full-size chambers (20 times bigger than DUNE’s) will hold 72,000 tonnes of argon and be able to detect beams of neutrinos fired from test facilities 1,300km (almost 810 miles) away. Scientists hope the chambers will help them fit neutrinos into the particle puzzle.

Touchdown on Titan

Titan (from the Huygens Probe) – 2005

“We’ll soon be landing in Adiri. The weather is breezy with temperatures of -170°C (-274°F).” We can imagine space tourists one day hearing these words as they prepare to disembark at a spaceport on TitanSaturn’s largest moon.

As of nowthoughthe Huygens probe remains the moon’s only visitor from Earth – mainly because getting there is such a chore. Having departed at the end of the 20th century – October 1997 – aboard the Cassini spacecraftit took the robotic lander until January 2005 to begin its descent to Titan’s surface.

As it parachuted into the moon’s Adiri regionHuygens took a number of photographsincluding this onebefore making a soft landing in sand and dirty ice.

Thanks to the lander’s (strictly business) tripwe now know that Titan’s atmosphere contains complex organic compounds and its surface is scarred with dried-out rivulets of what may have been liquid methane.

Head in the clouds

11,000m (36,000 ft) above the Pacific Ocean – 2016

Santiago ‘The Storm Pilot’ Borja has received many plaudits for the pictures he takes from the cockpit of his Boeing 767 passenger plane.

He initially tried taking photos of mountains and citiesbut realised they were too small to appreciate from the air. So he switched to taking photos of the weather insteadoften using lightning to illuminate the scenery.

Although he uses relatively long exposureshis photos aren’t blurry: the lightning works as a fast flash. This atmospheric image focuses on an ‘overshooting top’ – a patch of cloud where strong updraughts in a thunderstorm have caused a protrusion from the top of a cumulonimbus.

They’re small in meteorological termsmeasuring around 15km (about nine miles) across. Textbook examples appear as distinct spots in infrared satellite imagery. Overshooting tops are important in meteorology because they mark the location of the most severe conditions in storms.

Sink or swim

Masai MaraKenya - 2020

The River Talek in Kenya is one of five tributaries that flow into the Mara Riverwhich drains the famous Maasai Mara National Reserve.

Home to elephantswildebeestrhinos and big catslike these cheetahsthe Maasai Mara is a wildlife haven and safari destination. But when the region was inundated with flood waters in January 2020the river burst its banks and there were fears that animal populations would be swept away – as one man waswhile trying to cross a bridge over the river.

The cheetahs in this image also faced a difficult crossingthough witnesses say they were lucky enough to survive. Meanwhilecamps in the Maasai Mara were flooded and some tourists had to be rescued after seeking refuge on rooftops.

Unfortunatelythe region continues to be hit by deadly floodingwhich is attributed to climate change. In May 2024the River Talek broke its banks once againfollowing a particularly intense rainy season. Around 200 people are thought to have lost their lives in flash floods and mudslides.

Playing with fire

Reykjanes peninsulaIceland – 2022

Volcano tourism has exploded in recent decadesas thrill-seeking hikers flock to hotspots like the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park or the smoking craters of Mount Etna in Sicily.

The risks of doing so aren’t to be taken lightlyhowever. In December 2019a tour group visiting the White Island in New Zealand was caught out when the volcano eruptedkilling 22 of the 47 tourists.

Stillwhen lava started spewing from the ground at the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland in 2021some sightseers remained undeterred. Iceland isof coursewell-known for its volcanic activitybut this region is easily accessible from the capitalReykjavik. In this phototaken a year latertourists are witnessing an eruption at a second locationabout a kilometre away in the Meradalir Valley.

Prior to 2021there hadn’t been much volcanic activity in the area since the 12th centurybut nownew vents are opening up on a regular basis. In 2023a 3km-long (1.8-mile) crack appeared not far from the fishing town of Grindavíkprompting 3,800 people to leave their homes. Many have yet to return.

Centre of attraction

Sagittarius A• (From Earth) – 2022

We first stared into the astronomical abyss in 2019when the international team of scientists working at the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) captured an image of M87*a supermassive black hole in the centre of a galaxy 53 million light-years from Earth.

Three years laterthe EHT team used its global array of telescopes to produce this composite image of Sagittarius A*the supermassive black hole that lies 26,000 light-years away at the centre of the Milky Way – our home galaxy. In this image and the image of M87*it’s not the black holes we seebut the glowing gases swirling around them.

Even though it’s considerably closerit was much harder to get a clear shot of Sagittarius A* because of its lower mass. At ‘only’ 4 million times the size of the Sunit’s a baby compared to M87*which is a whopping 6.5 billion times bigger than the star at the centre of our Solar System.

This size discrepancy means the gases swirl around Sagittarius A* within minutesas opposed to days at M87*making for a changing pattern of brightness that’s difficult to image. EHT scientists are now working to produce the first movie of a black holeafter the 15m-wide (49ft) Africa Millimetre Telescope in Namibia was added to the array.

Basking in the Sun's glow

Saturn (From the Cassini Spacecraft) – 2006

NASA launched its Cassini spacecraft from Cape CanaveralFloridain 1997. Seven years laterit reached Saturnits primary destinationhaving travelled 3.4 billion kilometres and taken in the sights of Jupiter along the way.

Upon its arrival at Saturnthe spacecraft embarked on a grand tour of the ringed planet’s many moonsincluding Titan (where it dropped off the Huygens lander – see p10)DioneEnceladus and Rhea. In totalCassini collected 453,000 images during its missionincluding this stunning portrait of Saturntaken as the planet occulted the Sun.

Saturn’s rings were discovered over 400 years ago by Galileobutbacklit like thisthey appear brighter and perhaps more beautiful than we’ve ever seen them. Although they look smooth and continuousthey’re actually formed from billions of pieces of water ice and rock – some as small as grains of ricesome as big as mountains.

With the information Cassini was able to gatherscientists were able to learn more about where this material comes from. For instancewe now know that many of the icy chunks in the E-ring – one of the fainterouter rings – were vented from Enceladus.

Record-breaking resolution

North CarolinaUSA – 2023

This is a slice through a brain scan that’s 64 million times sharper than any ordinary magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine is capable of producing.

The full3D version – unveiled in 2023 on the 50th anniversary of the invention of magnetic resonance imaging – allowed scientists to view mind-boggling details of the circuitry inside a mouse’s brain.

It’s the result of four decades of work at Duke University’s Center for In Vivo Microscopy. Researchers there plan to use ultra-high-resolution scanning to study brain tumours and get to grips with what’s really going on in neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

Big machine seeks small particles

GenevaSwitzerland – 2005

ATLAS is the world’s biggest particle detectorhoused at the CERN facility in Switzerland. It catches fallout from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)which fires beams of high-energy particles at each other inside a 27km (almost 17 miles) doughnut-shaped tunnel under Geneva.

This image was taken before the final pieces were lowered in and the LHC was powered up. Following its detection of the Higgs boson in 2012scientists began upgrading ATLAS. In 2020two new detectors were installed that can pinpoint the position of a muon particle to within a tenth of a millimetre in less than one 400,000th of a second.

California burns

Ventura CountyCalifornia – 2019

In 2019wildfires raged across 1,122km 2 (697 sq miles) of California. The ‘Maria’ fire (right) engulfed 16km 2 (10 sq miles) of Ventura County before firefighters could put it out.

More than 10,000 people evacuated their homes as it rampaged through the region just northwest of Los Angelesall while firefighters across California battled other large blazes. But 2019 was a ‘good’ year for California – the average area consumed by wildfires is currently closer to 4,000km 2 (2,485 sq miles).

The California Air Resources Board says hotterdrier conditions driven by climate change are increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires.

Plutoup close

Pluto (From the Horizon’s spacecraft) – 2015

When NASA launched its New Horizons spacecraft in 2006Pluto was still a planet and the only one in the Solar System that remained completely unexplored.

Later that same yearhoweverPluto lost its full planet status as the International Astronomical Union officially designated it a ‘dwarf planet’. This may have downgraded the importance of the missionbut it didn’t change its trajectory.

New Horizons was already past Mars and well on its way towards Jupitertaking advantage of a gravity assist by the gas giant to knock three years off its journey time. Finallyin July 2015the spacecraft passed within an astronomical hair’s breadth – 12,553km (7,800 miles) – of Plutousing its telescope to take the photo above.

Prominent in the centreright of this image is the Solar System’s biggest glacierSputnik Planitiafirst spotted by the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957 and measuring around 1,000km wide (621 miles). Thanks to data from the flybyscientists were able to conclude that Pluto is bigger than they thoughtalthough it’s not actually size that determines planetary status.

The issue for Pluto is that its gravity isn’t strong enough to have cleared ‘its neighbourhood’ of other objects.

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