Incredible photos from space reveal the biggest news stories on Earth in 2017

The most important stories included a torrent of crippling natural disasters, jaw-dropping technological achievements, and geopolitical actions that ranged from uplifting to egregious.

While journalists scrambled on the ground, orbiting satellites documented these scenes in breathtaking detail from space.

To reflect on the year's most significant developments, DigitalGlobe - a satellite-imaging company that uses a fleet of orbiting satellites to take 100 terabytes' worth of new pictures of Earth each day - released a collection of remarkable space-based photography.

"We saw tragedies unfold, like the famine in Africa and Yemen, and we saw moments of great progress, like the strategic victories over the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq," Dan Jablonsky, the president of DigitalGlobe, said in an emailed press release. "DigitalGlobe's satellite constellation had a front-row seat to these and thousands of other impactful events in 2017."

Below is a selection of some of the images released by the company and what they reveal.