Images: NASA looks back on 2008

As 2008 comes to a close, NASA has published a short retrospective of the year's biggest advances and discoveries. Here's a look at the highlights.

10th anniversary of the ISS
This year marked the 10th anniversary of the International Space Station. The first piece of what would become the space station--the Russian-built FGB, also called Zarya--lifted off from Earth on November 20, 1998. The Zarya is pictured here after two weeks aloft, a shot taken from the approaching space shuttle Endeavour, which would deliver the second piece, the Unity module.

NASA made four trips to the ISS in 2008 to build out the station with new modules and hardware, increasing its size, volume, and scientific research capabilities, and famously deliveirng a new water recycling system.

Its mass is now more than 313 tons, with an interior volume of more than 25,000 cubic feet, comparable, NASA says, to the size of a five-bedroom house. The ISS now contains 19 research facilities.