THE BEST SCIENCE IMAGES OF 2023

A PIECE OF ROCK BROKEN OFF AN ASTEROID HURTLING THROUGH SPACE, THE FIRST FOOTPRINTS OF HUMANS ARRIVING IN NORTH AMERICA AND A GIANT MEATBALL MADE OUT OF WOOLLY MAMMOTH. THESE ARE JUST SOME OF THE IMAGES THAT CAUGHT THE ATTENTION OF BBC SCIENCE FOCUS EDITORS THIS YEAR, AND NO, THAT LAST ONE WASN'T A MISTAKE. ENJOY OUR SELECTION OF IMAGES THAT HAD US RUBBING OUR EYES IN DISBELIEF IN 2023.

- HAYLEY BENNETT

Rocket science

BOCA CHICA, TEXAS, USA
NOVEMBER

SpaceX, the spacecraft manufacturer founded by Elon Musk, conducted two tests of its reusable Starship system in 2023. Standing 121m (397ft) tall, it's twice the height of NASA's Space Shuttle and incorporates the world's most powerful rocket to date. The system has two stages: a passenger-carrying section on top (the second stage) and a rocket below (the first stage), powered by 33 methane and liquid oxygen-fuelled engines. Its maiden test flight (uncrewed) in April not only saw the system explode three minutes after launch, but the thrust from its engines also caused significant damage to the launchpad (see inset).

Its subsequent uncrewed test flight in November saw the second stage reach space successfully. Although it's believed to have self-destructed shortly afterwards, however.

In greater detail

NORTH CAROLINA, USA
APRIL

50 years ago, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Lauterbur described a new imaging technique in the journal Nature: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The technique remains at the forefront of modern medical diagnosis, but for the last four decades, researchers at Duke University in the US have been striving to improve it. This year, they showcased their results with this super-high resolution image of a mouse brain, made possible by a combination of stronger magnets and more powerful computers. Each voxel in the image (the equivalent of a pixel in 3D) is 64 million times smaller than in a standard MRI.