In October, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made the closest-ever flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus - capturing valuable scientific data from the plume of icy spray coming from the moon’s subsurface ocean. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft made history in March with another dwarf planet, Ceres, when it became the first spacecraft to orbit such a celestial body. New Horizons captured never-before-seen views of the distant dwarf planet and its moons, and collected data that will keep scientists busy for years to come, returning the data and images to Earth using NASA’s Space Network.

After a decade-long journey, the agency’s New Horizons spacecraft completed a historic flyby of Pluto in July, making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth. NASA is exploring our solar system and beyond to unravel the mysteries of our universe. “Our space program welcomed advances from commercial partners who will soon launch astronauts from the United States to the International Space Station, and progress on new technologies and missions to take us into deep space, improve aviation and explore our universe and home planet.” “It was a fantastic year that brought us even closer to Mars,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. In 2015, NASA explored the expanse of our solar system and beyond, and the complex processes of our home planet, while also advancing the technologies for our journey to Mars, and new aviation systems as the agency reached new milestones aboard the International Space Station.

This giant cluster of about 3,000 stars, called Westerlund 2, resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina.

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