While vacationing on the Maldives Islands, Taiwanese amateur photographer Will Ho stumbled onto an incredible stretch of beach covered in millions of bioluminescent phytoplankton. These tiny organisms glow similarly to fireflies and tend to emit light when stressed, such as when waves crash or when they are otherwise agitated. While the phenomenon and its chemical mechanisms have been known for some time, biologists have only recently began to understand the reasons behind it. Photo: Bioluminescent phytoplankton washes up on Maldives beach. (Photo by Will Ho)

A general view of dried-up rivers in the Pilbara region of Western Australia December 2, 2013. Western Australia's Pilbara region, which is the size of Spain, has the world's largest known deposits of iron ore and supplies nearly 45 percent of global trade in the mineral. (Photo by David Gray/Reuters)

National Geographic photographer Steve Winter has spent most of his adult life shooting wild cats. Photo: A 14-month-old cub, cooling off in a pond, is riveted by a deer that appeared near the shore. Tigers are powerful swimmers; they can easily cross rivers four to five miles wide and have been known to swim distances of up to 18 miles. (Photo by Steve Winter/National Geographic)

Finding just the right spot above the clouds at Camp 1 on Ama Dablam, Danuru Sherpa uses his iPhone to catch up with friends and family. Even at 18,500 feet (5,654 meters), climbers here can check their email and other dispatches from the world below. (Photo by Aaron Huey/National Geographic)

A person waving the rainbow flag runs on the pitch as the players line up for the national anthems the UEFA EURO 2020 Group F football match between Germany and Hungary at the Allianz Arena in Munich on June 23, 2021. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Pool via AFP Photo)

A car rests on a fence after it was carried there by floodwater on March 06, 2022 in Tumbulgum, Australia. Residents of southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales are still cleaning up following unprecedented storms and the worst flooding in a decade. (Photo by Dan Peled/Getty Images)

Visitors were able to pick their own flowers on this sunflower trail at Gloagburn Farm near Perth, in Scotland on September 13, 2021. Crawford Niven, a farmer, said he was inspired to make the trail, which is made up of nearly 200,000 plants, after seeing similar ones in America and Australia. (Photo by South West News Service)

A woman steers her stand-up paddle board using an umbrella as a sail at Ladoga lake near the city of Olonets, 300 kilometers (186 miles) north-east of St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, July 22, 2022. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)