A woman poses for a photo with the Rafflesia Arnoldii flower at Palupuah Forest, Agam District, West Sumatra, Indonesia on September 16, 2024. Palupuh forest is located at an altitude of 975 meters above sea level, with temperatures reaching 18-20 degrees Celsius. According to The West Sumatera Nature Conservation Agency (BKSDA), in the province of West Sumatra there are 36 points where this endangered flower grows. (Photo by Adi Prima/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A glasses-free Toshiba 55-inch 3-D 4x full HD TV shows the movie, “Coraline” at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center January 11, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The TVs are scheduled to be available this year and will come with embedded cameras with facial recognition capability so depending on where you are sitting, the set will adjust the viewing point for the best 3-D experience. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Hooded torch bearers lead the winter procession through the snow on February 4, 2012 in Huddersfield, England. Imbolc is a pagan festival that marks the half way point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Imbolc festivals celebrates the awakening of the land and the growing power of the Sun. (Photo by Bethany Clarke/Getty Images)

After some days with temperatures below freezing point, I was out skating at some lakes at the outskirts of Oslo in Norway. After a while I noticed something on the ice. To my astonishment it was a dead frozen frog.

Looking for an escape from the daily realities of crisis-ridden Venezuela, Carmen Gomez finds solace receiving visitors on the roof of her Caracas apartment building every morning: groups of blue and gold macaws that arrive at daybreak. Here: A macaw lands in Carmen Borges' hand while she stays at a rooftop of a building in Caracas, Venezuela, June 12, 2019. (Photo by Manaure Quintero/Reuters)

Like a scene from a fantasy movie, a dilapidated room that appears to have been literally ripped out of a building remains suspended in mid air above Nantes, France. Its walls were torn apart, revealing bricks below the plaster, and wood floors reveal the joists inside. The floating room is accessible via a ladder. The gravity defying surreal installation is the work of Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich. The large-scale piece, called “Monte-meubles – L’ultime déménagement” (literally - The Furniture Lift – The Ultimate Moving Out), was created for the biannual Le Voyage a Nantes, an art festival which turns the entire French city into an art gallery.

Located in Siberia, Laka Baikal is the largest freshwater lake on the planet that contains approximately 20 percent of the Earth’s freshwater. Apart from being the oldest lake in the world at over 25 million years old, Lake Baikal is also home to over two thousand varieties of flora and fauna, of which almost 1,600 are endemic to the lake. The water of Lake Baikal is renowned for being some of the clearest in the world. When the lake freezes during the winter, an amazing phenomena takes place: large shards of transparent ice form on the surface of the lake, giving the amazing appearance of turquoise ice.

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.