Slate has a piece by Phil Plait showing the best astronomy images of 2012.  The images are uniformly, unbelievably awe-inspiring and gorgeous.  I want to become an astrophotographer when I grow up.

Here is a Hubble photo of a star-forming factory, about 170,000 light years away from us.

Here’s a photo from NASA/Goddard showing an eruption on the sun:

And here is a NASA photo of the transit of Venus back in June:

Please go take a look at all of them.