NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole. In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane's eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon. Photo: The spinning vortex of Saturn's north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. (Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

Hermes Cifuentes, who is also known as “Brother Hermes”, performs an exorcism on Marleny Munoz, 55, who claims to be possessed by spirits in La Cumbre, Valle July 7, 2012. Cifuentes says he has performed more than 35,000 exorcism rituals in the past 25 years. (Photo by Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters)

Tourists in the Serengeti, Tanzania in the second decade of February 2024, get more than they bargained for as a cheetah jumps on the bonnet of their jeep to make their acquaintance. (Photo by Ann Aveyard/Animal News Agency)

Bici Palermo Tuning – a group of teenagers from the Sicilian capital Palermo – spend anything up to €1,300 customising their bikes with car batteries and multiple speakers to develop thunderous sound systems. The police are not impressed. (Photo by Matteo de Mayda/Cosimo Bizzari/The Guardian)

This brave swimmer certainly has a brrracing workout each weekend she skinny dips in one of the coldest rivers in Europe which regularly plummets to temperaturess of –9C. Inna Vladimirskaya, 32, strips off on the banks of the Dnieper river, in Kiev, Ukraine, every Sunday morning, and takes a swim after jogging along the snowy banks of the river in the nip. (Photo by David Tesinsky/Caters News Agency)

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s misfortunes have often eclipsed its good news, with ongoing armed conflicts and most recently an Ebola outbreak. Much of the world knows little of the country’s vibrant arts scene, and last weekend in the capital, Kinshasa, models showed off daring new looks dreamed up by local designers on the catwalk. (Photo by Olivia Acland/The Guardian)

Joshua Hoffine, based in Kansas City, Mo., and a self-proclaimed “Horror Photographer”, is interested in the psychology of fear. In his project “After Dark, My Sweet”, Hoffine’s surreal and staged images render these fears visible with the “visual grammar of a child”. Through elaborate sets, costumes, makeup and fog machines, Hoffine’s children act out these terrifying scenes in front of his camera. Here: “Basement”. (Photo by Joshua Hoffine/The Washington Post)

Grand title winner: Environmental photographer of the year. The Bitter Death Of Birds by Mehdi Mohebi Pour. This photo shows the efforts of the environmental forces to collect the bodies and prevent the spread of this disease. The Miankaleh wetland is being destroyed by changes in the climate and it is my duty as a photographer to highlight these problems and create a record for history. I want to prevent the complete destruction of the wetland and the potential environmental disaster by showing the issues and threats to these beautiful natural places. (Photo by Mehdi Mohebi Pour/Environmental Photographer of the Year)