Amateur astronomer Bill Snyder has been involved with astrophotography since 2007. Photo: The Cygnus Wall is in the southern area of NGC7000 also known as the North America Nebula. It is approximately 1800 light years from Earth, and is in the constellation Cygnus. The Wall is an energized shock front and contains the most concentrated star formations in the nebula. The size of the North America Nebula is about 4 full moons. (Photo and caption by Bill Snyder)

2016 Rio Olympics, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Final, Individual All-Around Final, Rotation 1, Rio Olympic Arena, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on August 20, 2016. Melitina Staniouta (BLR) of Belarus competes using the hoop. (Photo by Ruben Sprich/Reuters)

A person waves a drum while other people wearing traditional Russian village-style clothes celebrate the summer solstice near a bonfire in the village of Okunevo, about 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) northeast of the Siberian city of Omsk, Russia, on Wednesday, June 21, 2023. The festivities of Ivan Kupala, or John the Baptist, are similar to Mardi Gras and reflect pre-Christian Slavic traditions and practices. (Photo by Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP Photo)

Japan's delegation gather to sign the formal surrender document on the U.S. Navy battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay in a September 2, 1945 file photo. (Photo by Reuters/US Navy)

Meropidae are seen on a rock in Van in Turkey on March 03, 2018. (Photo by Ali Ihsan Ozturk/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

In this picture taken on Sunday, March 5, 2017, a Tehran's urban animal control worker catches a stray dog after being shot with his anesthetic dart on the outskirts of the capital Tehran, Iran. The shelter has been hired by the Tehran city government to take a new, more humane approach to deal with the burgeoning problem of stray dogs in the capital. It’s a sign of changing attitudes among officials in a country where Islamic authorities long saw dogs as “un-Islamic” and would at times confiscate them from people who kept them as pets. (Photo by Vahid Salemi/AP Photo)

There is an endless bounty of eye-catching gemstones throughout the world and this spectacular boulder opal is one unique beauty that looks like a shimmering crystal encased in a tree fossil. Its opalescent sheen seeps through the cracks of the seemingly wooden rings in lustrous hues of emerald green and aqua blue. Like something out of a fairy tale, the triangular piece radiates through an organic pattern mimicking the growth rings of tree.

An oversized, prehistoric praying mantis wreaks havoc in a freeway underpass as it overturns cars and trucks, in a film still from “The Deadly Mantis”, directed by Nathan Juran, 1957. (Photo by Universal Pictures/Courtesy of Getty Images)