IMAGES OF THE CENTURY

THE WORLD IS FULL OF WONDERS, AND HIGH-RESOLUTION CAMERAS LET US SEE THEM IN UNPRECEDENTED DETAIL.

- HAYLEY BENNETT

CHECK OUT OUR FAVOURITE IMAGES CAPTURED DURING THE FIRST 25 YEARS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

BEST. SELFIE. EVER.

MONT MERCOU, MARS

2021

Launched in 2011, NASA'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 Planet, carrying out experiments with its onboard laboratory. While Curiosity isn't heading back to Earth any time soon, the take-home message from its Martian campaign is that the planet once had free-flowing water and the kind of chemistry suitable for supporting life, namely microbes.

One of Curiosity's most memorable moments came in 2021, when the sixwheeled wanderer took this cheeky selfie while posing on a small outcrop of rock that scientists named Mont Mercou, after the French mountain. It's perhaps not quite the 'moment' that it first appears, though. To create the selfie, scientists 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 YUKON, CANADA

2022

This is Nun Cho Ga, the only whole baby woolly mammoth to have been discovered in North America (near Dawson City, Yukon) to date. In the Hän language spoken in the region where her mummified remains were found, her 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 2024, she was moved to the Canadian Conservation Institute to be carefully preserved.

LOST IN THE SHADOWS

AMERICA (FROM THE DEEP SPACE CLIMATE OBSERVATORY)