Fifty years ago on Dec. 21, 1968, Apollo 8 launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center at 7:51 a.m. EST.

The Washington National Cathedral is seen lit up with space imagery prior to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Spirit of Apollo event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8 on Dec. 11, 2018, in Washington, D.C.

International Space Station Commander Alexander Gerst viewed SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft chasing the orbital laboratory on Dec. 8, 2018.

Three crew members are adjusting to life on the International Space Station after a successful launch and docking of their Russian Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft on Dec. 3, 2018.

On Nov. 26, 2018, Mars received its newest robotic resident. NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander successfully touched down on the Red Planet after an almost seven-month, 300-million-mile (458-million-kilometer) journey from Earth.

As firefighters continue to battle the destructive Camp Fire in Northern California, the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., produced a new map showing damage as of Nov. 16., 2018.

As of Nov. 9, the fire had consumed 70,000 acres of land and was 5 percent contained.

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) took this photograph of the Betsiboka River Delta in Madagascar.

Operation IceBridge, NASA's longest-running aerial survey of polar ice, flew over the northern Antarctic Peninsula on Oct. 16, 2018.

Although the lake is dry most of the time, it's home to many species of water birds. When full, primarily during very wet periods, the lake retains water and allows no outflow and is hence classified as an endorheic basin.