This handout picture released by the Icelandic Coast Guard on May 29, 2024 shows billowing smoke and flowing lava pouring out of a new fissure, during a surveilance flight above a new volcanic eruption on the outskirts of the evacuated town of Grindavik, western Iceland. (Photo by Icelandic Coast Guard/Handout via AFP Photo)

McMurdo Station is a U.S. Antarctic research centre located on the southern tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting up to 1,258 residents, and serves as the United States Antarctic science facility. All personnel and cargo going to or coming from Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station first pass through McMurdo.

Indonesian mahouts clean their Sumatran elephant in a river near the zoo in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, 12 December 2014. According media reports, the smallest of the Asian elephants, Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatrensis) is facing serious pressures arising from illegal logging and associated habitat loss and fragmentation in Indonesia. The population has come under increasing threat from rapid forest conversion to plantations. (Photo by Dedi Sahputra/EPA)

An Iranian Shiite Muslim prays in Laylat al-Qadr, or the night of destiny, during holy fasting month of Ramadan after midnight, in central Tehran, Iran, early Sunday, June 18, 2017. Laylat al-Qadr is the night when Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to prophet Muhammad. Worshipers gather in religious ceremonies to pray, ask forgiveness and make wishes on one of the most important nights of the Islamic calendar. Shiite Muslims, the vast majority of Iranians, believe the night happens either on 19th, 21st or 23rd of the holy month of Ramadan. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Young women pose for photos in a Christmas-themed tunnel lit-up with decorations outside a shopping mall in Bangkok on December 4, 2020. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

Freshmen take part in a military training at Chongqing City Vocational College on September 23, 2021 in Chongqing, China. (Photo by Chen Shichuan/VCG via Getty Images)

British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, Cambridge University Professor and Fellow, circa 1985. Stephen Hawking, the brightest star in the firmament of science, whose insights shaped modern cosmology and inspired global audiences in the millions, has died aged 76. (Photo by Gemma Levine/Getty Images)

These men are chased by the defiant elephants on May 4, 2013. Taken by Biplab Hazra in Bishnupur, India, the images show the extreme lengths the inhabitants of the town go to to deter elephants from damaging their crops and property. Elephants encroaching out of their habitats is an increasingly common occurrence with deforestation in much of India. (Photo by Biplab Hazra/Caters News Agency)