A performer gestures at the Harbin Ice-Snow World in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, December 25, 2021. The 23rd Harbin Ice-Snow World opened to the public on Saturday. (Photo by Xie Jianfei/Xinhua News Agency/Profimedia via AP Photo)

A worker cleans the statue of Yuri Gagarin, the first person who flew to space, ahead of Cosmonautics Day celebrated on April 12, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday April 10, 2019. Cosmonautics Day marks when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, in 1961, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing. (Photo by Maxim Marmur/AP Photo)

Model Helen Kwok displays the nail art completed by a competitor at the Canada Nail Cup in Vancouver, Monday, February 16, 2015. Nail artists competed in multiple categories at the event, which according to organizers is the only nail competition in the country. (Photo by Darryl Dyck/AP Photo/The Canadian Press)

Passengers prepare to take part in the No Pants Subway Ride in Prague, Czech Republic, Sunday, January 8, 2017. The No Pants Subway Ride began in 2002 in New York as a stunt and has taken place in cities around the world since then. (Photo by Petr David Josek/AP Photo)

Participants jump into the water during the 114th edition of the Copa Nadal (Christmas Cup) swimming race in Barcelona's Port Vell on December 25, 2023. The traditional 200-meter Christmas swimming race gathered around 300 participants on Barcelona's Port Vell (old harbour). (Photo by Josep Lago/AFP Photo)

In this picture taken on September 5, 2023, students practice contortionism at the Flower Studio in Ulaanbaatar. Mongolian circus performers fly through the air of a cavernous hall inspectors have warned could collapse at any time, one of the few places left to train if they hope to travel the world with their country's spectacular big top shows. (Photo by Pedro Pardo/AFP Photo)

“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

“A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and injuring more than 500 people (20 had been hospitalized in serious condition), many of them hurt by broken glass. “There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK”, said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometres (930 miles) east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected region”. (Photo by Alexey Bulaew/RIA Nowosti)