The largest island, also called Socotra, is about 95% of the landmass of the archipelago. It lies some 240 kilometres (150 mi) east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres (240 mi) south of the Arabian Peninsula. The island is very isolated and through the process of speciation, a third of its plant life is found nowhere else on the planet. It has been described as the most alien-looking place on Earth. The island measures 132 kilometres (82 mi) in length and 49.7 kilometres (30.9 mi) in width.

An mechanic in Brick Lane Bikes repairs a fixed wheel bike in their shop in Shoreditch on June 14, 2011 in London, England. The UK bike industry has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people building their own custom bikes or purchasing bespoke bikes. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

US marines watch the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion rise above the Yucca flats, Nevada during a US nuclear weapons test. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images). USA, 1945

The rising sun penetrates early morning mist and begins to burn off the first frost of winter in the Cheshire countryside at dawn on 24 October, 2007, Knutsford, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Only with a pencil, ruler and protractor, without the help of a computer, Venezuelan artist Rafael Araujo creates complex fields of three dimensional space where butterflies come to life and shells rise from mathematical spirals.

Sustainable development goal target 12.5 is to reduce waste. But with a planet increasingly dependent on technology, is that even possible? As of today, over 30m tonnes of electronic waste has been thrown out so far this year, according to the World Counts. Most e-waste is sent to landfills in Asia and Africa where it is recycled by hand, exposing the people who do it to environmental hazards. Kai Loeffelbein’s photographs of e-waste recycling in Guiyu, southern China show what happens to discarded computers. (Photo by Kai Loeffelbein/laif Agentur)

This artist's scoreboard displays a fictional game between Mars and Earth, with Mars in the lead. It refers to the success rate of sending missions to Mars, both as orbiters and landers. Of the previous 39 missions targeted for Mars from around the world, 15 have been successes and 24 failures. For baseball fans, that's a batting average of .385. The United States has had 13 successes out of 18 attempts, or a “batting average” of .722. NASA's Curiosity rover, set to land on the Red Planet the evening of Aug. 5, 2012 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT), will mark the United States' 19th attempt to tackle the challenge of Mars, and the world's 40th attempt. (Image by NASA/JPL-Caltech)

An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters. Because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water has taken so long to recede, many trees have become cocooned in spiders’ webs.