11 Science Photos From This Week That Will Fill You With Awe

Mars drones, a new anglerfish, and more!

NASA / ESA / J. Trauger, Jet Propulson Laboratory / Via nasa.gov

The Lagoon Nebula is a region of intense star formation tangled up in swirling gas and dust. This image of it was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA / GSFC/ Jeff Schmaltz / Lynn Jenner / Via nasa.gov

Wildfires rage in the Darwin and Adelaide River areas in Australia's Northwest Territory on August 5, 2015 (outlined in red above). This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the NASA's Aqua satellite.

NASA / NOAA / Via nasa.gov

The far side of the moon, illuminated by the sun, as it crosses between a NASA spacecraft named DSCOVR and Earth — 1 million miles away.

Theodore Pietsch / University of Washington / Via eurekalert.org

The discovery of this new anglerfish species was announced this week.

NASA Earth Observatory / Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the USGS

An imager on the Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of algal blooms, visible as green swirls, around Lake St. Clair. Algae thrive when there's plenty of nutrients, sunlight, and warm water temperatures.

NASA / Bill Ingalls

This image, taken on Sunday, Aug. 2, shows the International Space Station crossing the face of the moon (you might have to squint a bit to make it out).

Copernicus Sentinel data (2015) / ESA

The Danube River, as seen by the Sentinel-2A spacecraft.

ESA / Rosetta / Navcam / CC BY-SA IGO

This image of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko was taken in April and released a few days ago in celebration of Rosetta's first year studying the comet.

John Cirrilto / Via news.wustl.edu

Plaques in the brain are linked to Alzheimer's disease, and are caused by the clumping together of beta-amyloid proteins. Here they're shown in red. A new study shows that the brain's ability to clear these plaques appears to slow with age.

NASA / Swamp Works / Via nasa.gov

Engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are building "prospecting" quad-copters that will be able to search for resources on Mars. This is a prototype.

NASA / Via earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Typhoon Soudelor photographed from the International Space Station on Aug. 5 as the storm pushed toward Taiwan.