A woman wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus stretches her body next to a masked woman sitting on a bench outside a shopping mall in Beijing, Thursday, October 21, 2021. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP Photo)

Night lovers; Hormozgan province, Iran. “In this picture, you can see the Milky Way rising on a fascinating spring night on the Persian Gulf coast. The stunning cliffs of this area make every viewer imagine and even talk to them! The light pollution from a faraway city was quite strong, so it was a challenging post-processing process. I’m a nightscaper who tries to achieve an artistic look in my images, and in this image, I tried to convey and capture the magic of this location”. (Photo by Mohammad Hayati/Milky Way Photographer of the Year)

16-year-old panda, Ye Ye, rests in an enclosure at the Wolong Nature Reserve, a conservation center that trains pandas for release into the wild. This image was published in the August 2016 National Geographic magazine as part of the “Pandas Gone Wild” story. (Photo by Ami Vitale/National Geographic Creative)

Sunrise over a moor viewed from Littaford Tor, Dartmoor, UK, 2016. Autumn visits the windswept moors and granite tors of Dartmoor earlier than the rest of the south-west. While there aren’t many trees here, autumn shades appear in golden ferns and tan heather. Littaford Tors, near Two Bridges and a mile from Princetown, is a short walk and can be combined with a visit to the adjacent Wistman’s Wood. (Photo by Stuart Holmes)

October winner. “A burst of the aurora borealis over Kirkjufell, taken in September 2016. This shot has been a holy grail for me and was finally captured after many trips”. MICK RYAN, JUDGE: Iceland is a hotspot for aurora photography and this composition of the symmetric, free-standing Kirkjufell and the trident waterfall is much-sought after. If you can time your visit when the aurora “kp” index is high and know the settings for nighttime aurora images, you may end up with a beautiful photograph like this. (Photo by DВ/The Guardian)

A lynx cub that followed a villager in the forest, is fed by a mother and her son for 2 days at the Koyulhisar district of Sivas, Turkiye on October 4, 2023. After 2 days, the lynx cub was taken under protection by the Sivas Department of Nature Conservation and National Parks teams. (Photo by Serhat Zafer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

U.S. Marines kick in a door while securing a building next to the main hospital in central Baghdad April 15, 2003, which will be used as a temporary Iraqi police headquarters. (Photo by Jerry Lampen/Reuters)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and these striking images of 2017 are no exception. The photo highlights include incredible snapshots of the natural world as well as some awesome animal and human encounters. The vibrant gallery also shows thrill-seekers pushing themselves to the limit with breathtaking stunts captured in perfect clarity. The pictures have been taken by a host of photographers from around the world. Here: The two lion cubs singing their hearts out at Antelope park in Zimbabwe. (Photo by David Jenkins/Caters News Agency)