A woman walks under snowfall in front of a Soyuz rocket installed as a monument in Baikonur city, near the Russian leased Kazakh Baikonur cosmodrome on December 5, 2021. Space tourists Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano, led by Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, will take part in a mission on the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) scheduled for December 8, 2021. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP Photo)

Balinese children take part in a traditional mud bath known as Mebuug-buugan, a day after Nyepi – the “Day of Silence”, aimed at neutralising bad traits in Kedonganan village on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on March 23, 2023. (Photo by Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP Photo)

Residents of Ezbet Hamada in Cairo's Mataria district gather to eat Iftar, the meal to end their fast at sunset, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Cairo, Egypt on April 6, 2023. (Photo by Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)

“Double head vulture”. On the day of windy days during raptors migration some people in my country start to catch these tired raptors, so in this day we go to photograph some raptors and we saw these tow tired vultures, so we start to drag them away from the hunters until they reach a good hidden place, to make them safe until they start a new journey. Photo location: Kuwait. (Photo and caption by Mohd Khorshed/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A woman poses next to a giant mining truck at the entrance of the Dakar Rally camp in Calama, Chile. The truck operates in copper mines near the city. (Photo by Victor R. Caivano/Associated Press)

“Microscope images forge an extraordinary bond between science and art, said Hidenao Tsuchiya, Olympus America's Vice President and General Manager for the Scientific Equipment Group. We founded this competition to focus on the fascinating stories coming out of today's life science research laboratories. The thousands of images that people have shared with the competition over the years reflect some of the most exciting work going on in research today – work that can help shed light on the living universe and ultimately save lives. We look at BioScapes and these beautiful images as sources of education and inspiration to us and the world”. – OlympusBioScapes

Photo: Pretarsus of the third leg of a female drone fly (Eristalis tenax), ventral view, by Dr. Jan Michels, Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany. (Photo by Olympus BioScapes)

A man dressed as Hindu goddess Kali, the goddess of power, performs with a burning camphor tablet on his tongue during a religious procession ahead of the “Kumbh Mela”, or Pitcher Festival, in the northern Indian city of Allahabad January 6, 2013. During the festival, hundreds of thousands of Hindus take part in a religious gathering at the banks of the river Ganges. The festival is held every 12 years in different Indian cities. (Photo by Jitendra Prakash/Reuters)

A reveller drinks wine while waiting for the launch of the “Chupinazo” rocket, to mark the official opening of the 2023 San Fermín fiestas in Pamplona, Spain, Thursday, July 6, 2023. (Photo by Alvaro Barrientos/AP Photo)