A resident douses passengers riding in a public motorcycle cab with water, during St. John the Baptist Feast Day celebrations in San Juan city, metro Manila June 24, 2014. Residents participate in an annual city-wide waterfest in honour of their patron Saint John the Baptist. (Photo by Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)

The giant mural titled “Under the Hand” by Maclaim Crew is visible on a building facade in Kreuzberg district on June 26, 2014 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin, with its long tradition of counter-culture, has become a mecca for street art of all dimensions and messages. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Militant Islamist fighters take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province June 30, 2014. The fighters held the parade to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic “caliphate” after the group captured territory in neighbouring Iraq, a monitoring service said. The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), posted pictures online on Sunday of people waving black flags from cars and holding guns in the air, the SITE monitoring service said. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

These spectacular landscapes may look like something from another planet – but they are in fact colorful salt ponds which stretch for miles. Despite being better known for tech companies and expensive property – San Francisco, California is also home to this vibrant quilt of color spanning the South Bay Area. From eerie green pools to gothic shades of red the surreal landscapes are caused by the organisms or micro-algae living within them. Photo: Aerial view of the salt ponds in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Cris Benton/Caters News)

Promotional models use their smartphones during their break at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing May 6, 2014. Mobile Internet industry executives, developers and investors from more than 30 countries took part in the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing, the organiser said. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

This is the moment a diver appears to shake hands with a giant 52ft whale. The divers were just metres away when one humpback whale – which weighs 36,000kg – extends its giant flipper in a peaceful manner. (Photo by Masa Ushioda/SeaPics/Solent News & Photo Agency)

“Today, we take photography for granted. Anyone can take a photograph simply by pressing a button. Yet, it was not always so simple. The invention of photography was announced in 1839, but during its first fifty years taking a photograph was a complicated and expensive business. In 1888, all this was to change following the appearance of a camera that was to revolutionize photography. Popular photography can properly be said to have started 120 years ago with the introduction of the Kodak”. – The UK National Media Museum. Photo: Two men on the deck of a ship, about 1890. (Photo by Collection of National Media Museum/Kodak Museum)

Despite any political differences between the United States and Russia, the space agencies of the two countries continue their cooperative work in Earth's orbit, aboard the International Space Station. Apart from the research being done in microgravity, ISS crew members continue to send back amazing images of our home world, photographed from low Earth orbit. Gathered here are recent images of Earth from aboard the ISS, and from a handful of other NASA satellites.