In this May 4, 2014 photo, a miner holds an amalgam of mercury and gold he mined after working a 28-hour shift at an illegal gold mining process, in La Pampa, in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Thousands of artisanal gold miners sweat through the long shifts and endure, for a few grams of gold, the perils of collapsing earth, limb-crushing machinery and the toxic mercury used to bind gold flecks. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

“SpaceShipOne was a suborbital air-launched spaceplane that completed the first manned private spaceflight in 2004. That same year, it won the US$10 million Ansari X Prize and was immediately retired from active service. Its mothership was named “White Knight”. Both craft were developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which was a joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's aviation company. Allen provided the funding of approximately US$25 million”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A chase plane follows SpaceShipOne after it reached a height of 62 miles in the first non-governmental flight to leave the Earth's atmosphere on June 21, 2004 in Mojave, California. SpaceShipOne spacecraft was carried to a height of 50,000 by the twin-turbojet high-altitude research aircraft, “White Knight”, where it was launched for its final climb. The space effort was funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and headed by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan. (Photo by Jim Campbell-Pool/Getty Images)

An image produced by the Hubble telescope of the perfectly “edge-on” galaxy, or NGC 4013, March 1, 2001. This new Hubble picture reveals, with great detail, huge clouds of dust and gas extending along, as well as far above, the galaxy's main disk. NGC 4013 is a spiral galaxy, similar to the Milky Way, lying some 55 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. Viewed face-on, it would look like a nearly circular pinwheel, but NGC 4013 happens to be seen edge-on from our vantage point. Even at 55 million light-years, the galaxy is larger than Hubble's field of view, and the image shows only a little more than half of the object, albeit with unprecedented detail. (Photo Courtesy of NASA/Newsmakers)

These images show off some of the world's most majestic creatures silhouetted against the beautiful rising and setting sun. The vibrant pictures feature a variety of animals in the wild and were taken by a host of photographers at locations around the world. The striking images all have one thing in common: the photographers' awe-inspiring ability to perfectly capture the silhouettes of earth's beautiful creatures. Here: a blue wildebeest moves through grassland at dawn with the sun in the background in Mara Naboisho Conservancy, Kenya, Africa. (Photo by Renato Granieri/Caters News/Ardea)

Edinburgh Zoo is proud to introduce this baby three-banded armadillo Rica who was born to mum Rio and dad Rodar in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK on Sunday 24 August 2014. A tiny 81g at birth and around the same size as a golf ball, Rica is a female three banded armadillo who has grown rapidly in her first month, already quadrupling in weight. (Photo by SWNS/ABACAPress)

Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada's six-acre sand and soil “facescape” stretches across the JFK Hockey Field on the north side of the Reflecting Pool along the National Mall October 1, 2014 in Washington, DC. Titled “Out of Many, One” and composed of 2,500 tons of sand, 800 tons of top soil and eight miles of string, the piece is the artist's interpreative blending of 30 different men's faces. Rodriguez-Gereda used high-precision global positioning satellites to place 10,000 wood pegs as waypoints for the giant face. The piece will be open to the public beginning October 4 and will eventually be tilled back into the earth. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Skulls are seen at the witch doctor kiosk during the day of offerings to the “Pachamama” (Mother Earth) in El Alto, Bolivia, August 1, 2016. Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. She is also known as the earth/time mother. In Inca mythology, Pachamama is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

“The Amazon river has a newly discovered source. Completed last year and led by West Hansen and documented by award-winning freelance photographer Erich Schlegel, this is the first expedition to paddle from the furthest source of the earth's largest river to the ocean”. – zReportage. Photo: August 19, 2012 – Alpamarca, Peru – Amazon Express white water members Juan Antonio De Ugarte, of Peru, Rafael Ortiz, of Mexico, West Hansen, of the U.S., and Tino Specht, of the U.S., paddle down the Rio Gashan after leaving Lago Acucocha. Lago Acucocha is possibly the dry season source of the Amazon River. (Photo by Erich Schlegel/zReportage via ZUMA Press)