The official name for this tiny speck of land – the size of 12 football pitches – is Hashima, but few call it that. In English, its most commonly used name means “Battleship Island” and, viewed from a certain angle offshore, its silhouette is uncannily dreadnought in nature. It was a mining facility until 1974, when it was abandoned to the elements, before partially reopening as a tourist attraction in 2009. Photo: A decades-old television. (Photo by Mark C. O'Flaherty)

An artist has gone to incredible lengths to paint several iconic album covers on her own face. London-based artist Natalie Sharp wanted to celebrate Record Store Day in a unique way, and asked her Facebook friends for suggestions about which album covers to paint. She was overwhelmed with responses, and as a result painted 40 different album covers on her face, including Nirvana's “Nevermind”, King Crimson's “The Court of the Crimson King”, and “Melt” by Peter Gabriel. Here: King Crimson album. “In fact, I barely used by brushes for King Crimson; I would just keep smudging it with my fingers”. (Photo by Natalie Sharp/Caters News)

Soap Bubble Structures by Kym Cox. Bubbles optimise space and minimise their surface area for a given volume of air. This phenomenon makes them a useful tool in many areas of research, in particular, materials science and “packing” – how things fit together. Bubble walls drain under gravity, thin at the top, thick at the bottom, which interferes with travelling lightwaves to create bands of colour. Black spots show the wall is too thin for interference colours, indicating the bubble is about to burst. (Photo by Kym Cox/2019 Science Photographer of the Year/RPS)

Urte Baikstyte, of Lithuania, fails an attempt in the Women High Jump qualification at the European Athletics Indoor Championships at Atakoy Arena in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, March 2, 2023. (Photo by Khalil Hamra/AP Photo)

A blue tit comes face to face with its reflection in a car wing mirror in east Yorkshire in the last decade of July 2022. The photographer said: “I sat watching this little blue tit for 30 minutes as it fought with its own reflection”. (Photo by Dave Newman/Solent News)

People gather to watch the eruption of the Mauna Loa Volcano while the lava flow is covered with the clouds in Hawaii, U.S. December 3, 2022. (Photo by Go Nakamura/Reuters)

Grave diggers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) walk away after burying a person, who presumably died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the special purpose section of a graveyard on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, Russia on May 13, 2020. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)

A cat sits on the empty Great Wall on February 23, 2021 in Beijing, China. Affected by the new coronavirus (COVID-19), the number of visitors to Mutianyu Great Wall in 2020 dropped by about 60%. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)