Chunks of sea ice, melt ponds and open water seen from 1,500 feet on July 16.
NASA/Goddard/Operation IceBridge
A rift in the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica, photographed on November 10.
NASA/John Sonntag / Via nasa.gov
Ninety-nine-million-year-old dinosaur tail feathers, preserved in amber.
Royal Saskatchewan Museum / RC McKellar
Part of the Sahara desert in western Libya, taken from the International Space Station on October 3.
Sally Ride EarthKAM / NASA / Via nasa.gov
Valleys on Mars, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
NASA / Via nasa.gov
The invisible turbulence of hot air rising from a small liquid-fuelled camp stove. Schlieren photography allows us to see and record the refractive index differences between the hot air from the flame and the cooler ambient air in the surrounding environment. One of the winners of the Royal Photography Society's International Images for Science awards, supported by Siemens.
Phred Petersen / Royal Photography Society International Images for Science / Via rps-science.org
The Curiosity Mars rover taking a selfie.
NASA / Via jpl.nasa.gov
A Soyuz spacecraft with three astronauts on board lands in Kazakhstan on October 30.
NASA/Bill Ingalls
New newt species Tylototriton anguliceps discovered in the Greater Mekong region and announced in a WWF report in December.
Porrawee Pomchote / WWF
Astronomers found evidence for what is likely one of the most extreme pulsars, or rotating neutron stars, ever detected. This composite image shows RCW 103 in x-ray and optical light.
Chandra X-ray Observatory Center / X-ray: NASA/CXC/University of Amsterdam/N.Rea et al; Optical: DSS
A Cuban emerald hummingbird, Chlorostilbon ricordii. This photograph was the overall winner in the 2016 British Ecological Society photography competition.
David J. Bird / British Ecological Society
A caterpillar in its final minutes, after its back has erupted with parasitoid pupae and during a wasp attack. The drop of liquid is haemolymph – the equivalent of blood for a caterpillar. This photograph was the student winner in a category of the 2016 British Ecological Society photography competition.
Ciara Stafford / British Ecological Society
Microbeads, tiny bits of plastic found in cosmetics that are too small for treatment systems to remove from waste water and harm marine life, taken from a type of eyeliner. The image is taken from a photography project studying the effects of microplastics on the environment.
Eleanor Ryder / Royal Photography Society International Images for Science / Via rps-science.org
Ants eating food colouring with sugar, turning blue from the liquid ingestion.
Andre Castellan / Royal Photography Society International Images for Science / Via rps-science.org
The Milky Way above an ocean of cloud, taken at 4,400m altitude in the Himalayas.
Yevhen Samuchenko / Royal Photography Society International Images for Science / Via rps-science.org
"Warrior of the Grassland": a fanthroated lizard, a highly territorial creature, on guard to protect its territory. Image taken in Maharashtra state, India, in summer, the lizards' breeding season.
Anup Deodhar / Royal Photography Society International Images for Science / Via rps-science.org
The Crab Nebula – a vast cloud of gas, formed by an exploding star 2,600 years ago and 1,600 light years away – seen through the Hubble telescope in October.
ESA / Hubble / NASA / Via spacetelescope.org
The Phuket Horned Tree Agamid, Acanthosaura phuketensis, was recently discovered among the few remaining forest patches on the popular Thai tourist island of Phuket.
Montri Sumontha / WWF
A Greenland shark, a kind of sleeper shark. These huge, slow-moving creatures move gently around the deep Atlantic. A study this year discovered that they are the longest-living vertebrates known to humanity, with one specimen being recorded at at least 392 years old.
Julius Nielsen / Via buzzfeed.com
Small star clusters orbiting a lenticular galaxy, NGC 5308. "Small" is a relative term: Each cluster contains hundreds of thousands of stars.
NASA / ESA / Hubble
The end of a diving beetle's leg, seen in false colour under a microscope. It's about 2mm long and is used to attach to a female's back during sex.
Igor Siwanowicz / Nikon Small World 2016 / Nature / Via nature.com
Sandhill cranes on their long migration from Siberia to Mexico shelter in Nebraska during a storm. From National Geographic's best pics of the year.
Randy Olson / National Geographic / Via nationalgeographic.com
Lightning flashes and city lights are seen from the International Space Station, with two Russian spacecraft in the foreground.
NASA / Via nature.com
Blacktip reef sharks, lounging in a few inches of low-tide water in a bay in the Seychelles.
Thomas P. Peschak / National Geographic / Via nationalgeographic.com
Tiger sharks in the northern Bahamas, in a place known as "Tiger Beach".
Brian Skerry / copyright Brian Skerry / Via nationalgeographic.com
A radio-frequency image of the universe, taken by the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) radiotelescope in the Australian outback.
Natasha Hurley-Walker / GLEAM Team / Via nature.com
Ruppell's Griffon vultures (Gyps rueppellii) and African whitebacked vultures (Pseudogyps africanus) eating the remains of a zebra in the Serengeti.
Charlie Hamilton James / National Geographic / Via nationalgeographic.com
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