Penitentes, or nieves penitentes (Spanish for “penitent-shaped snows”), are a snow formation found at high altitudes. They take the form of tall thin blades of hardened snow or ice, closely spaced with the blades oriented towards the general direction of the sun.

SpaceX launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites on Mission 12-2 on December 23, 2024. The rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39A in Florida. (Photo by USA Today)

Camera trapper Xavier Hubert-Brierre put this large mirror on the side of a road through the jungle in Gabon and left a camera there to record how the animals would respond to their own reflections. A silverback gorilla thought it was seeing another silverback and responded by trying to scare off the potential challenger… (Photo by Xavier Hubert-Brierre/Johns Hopkins University Press)

German field telegraph operators at work in Warsaw. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1st October 1914

Portrait beautiful woman on the beach, Landing aircraft above the beach at Phuket Airport. Mai Khao beach, one of the most popular beaches among tourists in Phuket. (Photo by Southtownboy/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Tiffany Noreuil at the Oregon Humane Society in Portland, Oregon, holds feline Hercules, a 20-pound stray whose girth got him stuck in a pet door while trying to plunder some dog food. (Photo by AP Photo)

See also: Large People

A man poses for a picture to show his rings of gold, silver and bronze on his fist in Zamfara, Nigeria April 21, 2016. (Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

Firefighters use flashlights to search for survivors among the rubble of collapsed buildings after a landslide hit an industrial park in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China December 20, 2015. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)