25 Awe-Inspiring Photos from 2012

Egyptian protesters gather outside the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 7. Egypt's political crisis spiraled deeper into bitterness and recrimination as thousands of Islamist backers of the president vowed vengeance at a funeral for men killed in bloody clashes earlier this week and large crowds of the president's opponents marched on his palace to increase pressure after he rejected their demands. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Photojournalist Daniel Botelho snapped this stunning shot of a mola mola more than two years ago, but it wasn't widely seen until this year, when he posted it on Facebook. The social network went wild for the fish, and a week later the photo has over 2,000 shares and 3,000 likes.

Surfer Jason Finlay of Australia competes in the 2012 Shark Island Challenge Final at Shark Island on July 24, 2012 in Sydney, Australia.

This photo of Trango Summit in northern Pakistan's Karakoram range was taken in July from a camera mounted to a remote-controlled helicopter -- a drone. Peter Ortner, Corey Rich and David Lama stand atop the mountain.

in the Artistic Gymnastics Women's Individual All-Around final on Day 6 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at North Greenwich Arena on August 2, 2012 in London, England.

President Barack Obama is greeted by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie upon his arrival at Atlantic City International Airport in Atlantic City, NJ, Oct. 31. Obama traveled to the region to take an aerial tour of the Atlantic Coast in New Jersey in areas damaged by Superstorm Sandy. 

Skydiver Felix Baumgartner prepares to make the highest jump ever from 24 miles up over the New Mexico desert on Oct. 14.

Felix Baumgartner jumps out of his capsule Oct. 14. Baumgartner shattered the sound barrier while making a tumbling, death-defying plunge from a balloon to a safe landing in the New Mexico desert.

In this frame of a video taken Oct. 5 during the NASA Mars rover landing, the heat shield falls away. Curiosity is the first spacecraft to record a landing on another planet. The six-wheel rover arrived on Aug. 5 to begin a two-year mission to examine whether the Martian environment was hospitable for microbial life.

Engineers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, celebrate the landing of the Mars rover on the Red Planet Aug. 5.

A kayaker looks back at the dorsal fin of an approaching shark at Nauset Beach in Orleans, Mass. in Cape Cod on Saturday, July 7. An unidentified man in the foreground looks towards them. No injuries were reported.

A 4-day-old newborn silverback gorilla clings to his mother in the Ramat Gan safari, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Nov. 14.

China's first female astronaut Liu Yang, bottom, waves June 16 during a sending off ceremony as she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China. 

Famed tightrope walker Nik Wallenda crosses Niagara Falls on a wire, June 15. It was the first walk across Niagara Falls in over a century, and tens of thousands of spectators watched from the US and Canadian sides of the falls. Wallenda's walk on a cable suspended 196 feet up over a never-before-traversed rim of the waterfall took under 30 minutes, less than expected.

France's Florian Pays leaps from Malaysia's landmark KL Tower, the 1,389-foot broadcasting tower in downtown Kuala Lumpur, Sept. 29.

This stunning view of Earth reveals the planet at night in unprecedented detail. Released by NASA Dec. 5, it was assembled from multiple shots taken by the Suomi NPP satellite during April and October 2012. The new data was mapped over existing Blue Marble imagery of Earth to provide a realistic view of the planet.

The space shuttle Endeavour, atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, ands at Los Angeles International Airport on Sept. 21. Its journey marked the final scheduled ferry flight of the Space Shuttle Program.

A Japanese snow monkey relaxes in a hot spring in the Jigokudani valley in northern Nagano Prefecture in Japan Friday, Feb 10. The macaques descend from the forests to the warm waters of the hot springs in the mornings and return to the security of the forests in the evenings.

Qiu Bo from China competes in the men's 10-meter platform diving semi-final during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

President Barack Obama sits on the famed Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford Museum following an event in Dearborn, Michigan, April 18.

Terraced rice paddies glow with 20,000 solar-powered pink LED lights to be recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records on Nov. 10 in Wajima, Ishikawa, Japan. The terrace paddies were registered Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) last year. 

Fireworks light up the London skyline and Big Ben just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2012. Thousands of people lined the banks of the River Thames to see in the New Year.

A group of 138 skydivers form a massive snowflake over Ottawa, Ill Aug. 3. Falling at speeds of up to 220 mph, the divers shattered the vertical skydiving world record as they flew heads-down.