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Space highlights of 2015

Space highlights of 2015
Space highlights of 2015 From left to right: 1. Dawn's view of dwarf planet Ceres and its now less mysterious "bright spots," found to likely be composed of salts. 2. SpaceX returned its Falcon 9 rocket to flight with flair, successfully deploying 11 communications satellites after returning the rocket's first stage to Cape Canaveral for an upright landing. 3. Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko shows off its dramatic jets for the Rosetta mission, which is still actively monitoring this small but active body. 4. The Planetary Society's LightSail had a successful test flight earlier this year. 5. New Horizons stole the show in 2015 by returning stunning images of Pluto, revealing a beautiful and geologically complex world to human eyes for the first time. Ceres: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / Daniel Macháček; Falcon 9: SpaceX; Comet 67P: ESA / Rosetta / NavCam; LightSail: Josh Spradling / The Planetary Society; Pluto: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / ZLDoyle; Mosaic: Tanya Harrison / The Planetary Society