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)

A Sri Lankan activist, who wrapped himself with fire crackers, walks in Colombo on July 23, 2014 to symbolically demonstrate against people burned during Anti-Tamil riots on the island thirty-one years ago. Official accounts placed the death toll at 400 while human rights activists put the toll at thousands. (Photo by Ishara S.Kodikara/AFP Photo)

Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)

French actress Marie Cornillon wearing body paint and a headgear with bull horns, poses in front of the Nimes arena with a sign inscribed “Abolissons la corrida” (Abolish corrida bullfighting) as part of a protest by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) animal rights group to ban bullfighting in France, on November 16, 2022. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo)

“Misty Morning”. Every morning, people expect sunny weather. Photo location: Bali, Indonesia. (Photo and caption by Henry Adam/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Four young, trendsetting architectural offices from Denmark, Holland and France along with PensionDenmark are the clever ones behind the Iceberg – a unique house building, sporting 11 pinnacles, situated at the outermost corner of Aarhus Harbour, thus having a spectacular view of Aarhus Bay and Kalø Cove and Aarhus City.

A snow leopard looks on from an inside of a cage, after being captured from the southern plains of Nepal and brought to the central zoo, which wildlife experts say is rare for the animal that is found in the higher altitude, in Kathmandu, Nepal on January 26, 2024. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A local resident helps free a car that became stranded in a stretch of flooding road as Tropical Storm Helene strikes, on the outskirts of Boone, North Carolina, U.S. September 27, 2024. (Photo by Jonathan Drake/Reuters)