SPACE

From Mars to Pluto and Jupiter to the Sun, Nasa's image gallery this year is nothing short of stunning.

From the Big Bang theory being classified as just a speculation to distant galaxies possibly hiding alien worlds – these the best space stories of the week.

The historic attempt comes just months after SpaceX first relaunched a used Falcon 9 rocket booster into space in March.

The discovery could provide astronomers new insights into the behaviour of black holes including how they feed on cosmic objects.

Musk plans to initiate the mission to Mars with his BFR rocket in 2022.

"This primordial atmosphere created by a magma ocean would have been the hottest and wettest Mars ever was".

The galaxies are wrapped in a halo of dark matter and are likely going through a burst of star formation activity.

After the moon was carved out of Earth, bombardments continued for millions of years and some of the debris reached the core of the planet.

A Brazilian physicist believes that the singularity did not exist and that the Big Bang was not an event that kicked off the expansion of the universe.

Preliminary investigations into the crash point out to guidance computer errors that caused the spacecraft to make a 360 degree turn in the wrong direction.

The exoplanet sits in a potentially habitable zone around its parent star and also has a neighbouring super-Earth, K2-18c.

Bacteria seem to thrive in the Space Station and researchers find that most of them are harmless.

The tech, dubbed "take me home", would essentially add self-return capabilities to the spacesuit, bringing the astronaut back to a safe point.

Massive gas clouds made of hydrogen and other materials from within and outside the Milky Way have been mapped in detail.

This galaxy cluster is several thousands of times larger than the Milky Way, containing thousands of individual galaxies, packed up close.

The image was taken from a distance of 18,000km above the surface of these clouds.

Nasa fired the dormant Voyager 1's thrusters for the first time since 1980.

After saying he will be launching a car into space, Elon Musk then said he was not going to. But sources later confirmed the news that there is going to be a Tesla Roadster aboard the Falcon Heavy.

From 'alien' bacteria found on the space station, to mysterious deep space signals detected – these are the best space stories of the week.

For hundreds of years, long before the arrival of space travel, people have dreamt of reaching the moon

WASP-18b - which is 10 times more massive than Jupiter - has a choking atmosphere consisting of deadly carbon monoxide.

Researchers from the agency have found the factor that could have helped in maintaining subsurface water under these worlds.

The image was composed from Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory and a couple of ground-based telescopes.

Incredible footage of our planet shared by International Space Station commander Randy Bresnik reveals natural and man-made wonders.

From athletes to rappers, many people have expressed support towards the flat-Earth theory in the past.

The only Supermoon of 2017 is slated to occur on 3 December, when the moon is expected appear closer and brighter.

The discovery was made using MUSE instrument mounted on top of ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile.

"On behalf of the United Government of Mars, I would like to welcome you to your second home."

The satellite detected a surprising spectral breach and a strange spike, which may help scientists uncover the origins of dark matter.