In one of the planet’s most desolate and harsh terrains, the Altai Mountains which run from Siberia in Russia down to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, hunting with eagles is currently only practiced by a handful of Kyrgyz and Kazakhs. This form of falconry, the practice of hunting with the aid of birds of prey, can be traced back as far as 4,000 years in Central Asia. Here: after a successful hunt, a proud hunter rewards his eagle by feeding it the lungs of the prey, which is considered the most highly prized part of the animal. (Photo by Tariq Zaidi/The Washington Post)

Kazakh girls watch as the Russian Soyuz TMA-15 rocket carrying Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Frank De Winne of Belgium and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko readies for take-off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan on May 27, 2009. Three astronauts, from Canada, Belgium and Russia, blasted off for the International Space Station in a landmark mission that will double its crew to six for the first time. (Photo by Dmitry Kostyukov/AFP Photo)

Goats covered with cloth are tied next to a hut on a cold winter morning in New Delhi on December 26, 2023. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

A woman yawns as she sits outside a hospital on a cold winter morning in Srinagar January 3, 2019. (Photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters)

Border Security Force (BSF) “Daredevils” women motorcycle riders perform during a rehearsal for the Republic Day parade on a cold winter morning in New Delhi, January 10, 2018. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Models of Cold War-era Allied (L) and Soviet Bloc weaponry face one another at the new Bundeswehr Military History Museum (Militaerhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr, or MHM) on October 11, 2011 in Dresden, Germany. The museum, redesigned by star architect Daniel Libeskind, traces Germany military history from 1300 to the present, including during the Nazi period and the Cold War, and also examines the influence of the military on popular culture. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

American media personality and socialite Kylie Jenner (R) and her pal Yris Palmer brave the cold in a hot jacuzzi in the first decade of December 2022. (Photo by kyliejenner/Instagram)

Hundreds of hardy swimmers across Britain braved jumping into freezing cold waters for a annual Christmas Day dip on December 25, 2017. (Photo by Dave Nelson/The Sun)