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)

Michael Olivant, a Times reader, saw a chance to contribute when a Dalmatian pelican landed on his wife’s head at Lake Kerkini in northern Greece in the first decade of February 2025. (Photo by Michael Olivant/The Times)

People brave the first rain and wind of Storm Agnes as it approaches the UK on September 27, 2023 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Male orangutan Percy is reflected in the Sekonyer River as he reaches over to try and touch a wooden klotok boat carrying crew and tourists, in Tanjung Puting National Park, in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), Indonesia, September 4, 2013. Percy is a son, born and living in the wild, of a female orangutan named Princess, a freed former captive orangutan that anthropologist Dr Birute Galdikas rescued, rehabilitated and returned to the wild. (Photo by Barbara Walton/EPA)

In this November 2, 2017 photo, Mathew Fulkerson and his wife Leigh Ann pose at their Subterra Airbnb located in a former underground missile silo base near Eskridge, Kan. It was designed to house a nuclear warhead six decades ago – but now, this Cold War silo is the perfect spot for a mini break at just $133 a night. (Photo by Thad Allton/The Topeka Capital-Journal via AP Photo)

American singer, actress, and television personality Kelly Rowland wears Gaurav Gupta Couture at the Kilian Paris “Sunkissed Goddess” party on May 22, 2024 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pierrick Rocher/BFA.com)

A Muslim worshipper belonging to the Mouride Brotherhood prays in the sea during the “prayer preformed at sea” ceremony in Dakar on September 21, 2023. Followers of the Muslim Mouride brotherhood in Senegal gather for a ceremony celebrating the prayer that the founder of the brotherhood, Cheikh Amadou Bamba preformed at sea when exiled to Gabon by the French. (Photo by John Wessels/AFP Photo)

Ivanka Trump, Advisor to the US President, attends the “Global Call To Protect Religious Freedom” conference during the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters, September 23, 2019. President Trump skipped the Climate Action Summit as the United States withdrew from the 2016 Paris Climate Agreemnet. (Photo by Anthony Behar/Sipa USA)