1. The 12.5-meter-tall statue of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in the Gobi Desert of Guazhou has become a popular spot for internet celebrities to check in, and this majestic sculpture is mainly made of red sandstone, carefully carved through 3D scanning and digital technology.
2. With thousands of years of rock art and evidence of human habitation dating back to the Bronze Age, this is undoubtedly one of the oldest surviving mystical ruins. The Al Naslaa rock formation, despite its bifurcation, towers into the sky, each rock delicately balanced on a tiny pedestal. What is special is the crack in the middle of the rock, which is presented in an almost perfect straight line, albeit only a few inches thick. To this day, no one knows how this was achieved, whether it was the culmination of human ingenuity or the work of nature.
3. An attempt at the world's largest bonfire in 2021 left this impressive photograph that reminds me of Peter Bruegel's 1563 Babel, in which people are also working together to build the world's tallest tower.
4. The KVANT-1 project, inspired by stories from the East, the legend of the pyramids, and the famous archaeologist and explorer Indiana Jones, built a series of "temples" with themes of the natural world, uncharted territories, and the spirit of exploration. These surreal, extraterrestrial landscapes are a celebration of mystery, understanding and even imagination.
5. What we see before our eyes is the world's largest ship graveyard, located near Karachi, where huge oil tankers and cruise ships are gradually dismantled until they become unrecognizable. It's an amazing process that relies almost entirely on hand.
6. In 2019, at Black Rock City, known as the Burning Man Festival, an impressive 27 suspended stones formed the "Stone 27" art installation, a work by German sculptor Benjamin Langholz, presented to festival visitors.
7. Last March, an Australian cultured meat startup created lab-grown mammoth meatballs. The meatballs are not meant to be eaten because scientists don't yet know how the 5,000-year-old protein interacts with the body's immune system. The aim is to show that lab-grown meat could be a viable option for reduced agricultural use in the future. Mammoths lived in Eurasia and North America between 700,000 and 4,000 years ago, becoming extinct after the last ice age.
8. What we see is the bottom view of the Amazon glass frog, the frog's internal organs, including the heart, liver, and digestive system, can be seen through its transparent skin.
9. These wonderful images capture a father swimming in a gloomy river with more than 100 young crocodiles of the gharial species attached to his back.
10. The migration of birds over Rome obscured almost the entire sky.
11. The rare cloud rainbow phenomenon is a colorful optical phenomenon that usually occurs near the sun or moon.
12. The long-exposure lens captures the flight trajectory of a single bird, merging all the individual birds into a long, blurred line.
13. The root system of this tree has fully adapted to its surroundings.
14. No matter how beautiful or unreal this sight may be, the inhabitants around Buffalo want to see it again. The coastal character around Lake Erie became like an ice sculpture after a few days of freezing rain. The freezing rain has killed more than 40 people, trapped people in snow-covered cars and houses, and scenes from the movie "Frozen" are beginning to unfold in parts of the United States.
15. When Mount Vesuvius erupted, this skull-shaped cloud of smoke appeared in the sky.
16. The eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano near Kjavik has inspired some adventurous photos, as we can see here, where tourists venture close to bright orange lava flows despite warnings.
17. Back in 1971, when the Soviet Union took control of several satellite countries, a group of geologists was sent to the Karakum Desert in search of valuable oil fields. When they thought they had discovered a big oil field, they started drilling. Unfortunately, not enough research has been done on the viability and overall security of the business.
As a result, they drilled a spongy pocket of natural gas, and it was quite large. The ground does not even support the weight of the equipment. According to Soviet reports, no one died (miraculously). However, the extremely flammable gas escaping from the hole was killing nearby animals, leading to the decision to set it on fire, which was thought to only last a few weeks. Although the fire is still raging more than 50 years later, and there is no indication of how much gas remains, it is likely that the pit will continue to burn.
18. The crew of the International Space Station was able to observe the spectacular eruption of Mount Etna and took this photograph showing the fire eruption plumes and smoke as the lava flows down the 11,000-foot slope.
19. On the top of the active volcano Bromo, stands the statue of Lord Ganesha.
20. On 14 September 2014, lava from the Balzabunga volcano flowed out. Since mid-August of that year, the volcanic system has been shaken by hundreds of earthquakes every day, raising fears that the volcano could explode. The outbreak, which ended on February 27, 2015, emitted large amounts of sulphur dioxide, affecting the country's air quality. At an altitude of 2,000 meters (6,500 feet), Balzabunga is the second highest peak in Iceland and lies beneath Vatnajökul, the largest glacier in Europe.
21. The Amazon River as seen from space.
22. This isn't an in-game location, nor is it some superbadass's secret lair (as far as I know). It is the Russian island of Ulup, located in the Sea of Okhotsk in northeastern Japan.
23. Some tourists and local Muslim women are admiring the mountaintop scenery around Mount Bromo.
24. At Dunkun Pier, a flock of sheep is unloading. This unique and beautiful little attraction is located in one of the most southwestern points of Ireland. The photos show that the traditional way of herding sheep is still very much alive in the area.
25. The Costa Concordia lies almost horizontally in the water near Isola del Giglio. On the last leg of the seven-day cruise, the captain Francesco Chetino decided to abandon the planned route and move closer to the coast, only to hit a rock formation just before 10 p.m.
26. An American community is building house after house. The construction process of a house is almost like a domino effect, carefully crafted step by step, so the builder who assembles the part has something to do on an ongoing basis. This creates a blended scene, almost like a schematic diagram of each floor of the house.
27. The French National Museum of Natural History, located in Paris, is absolutely beautiful, to say the least. As shown above, countless specimens were collected from all over the world, at almost all moments of time. When I say innumerable, I really don't mean innumerable. I mean, you can't see every single thing in the four galleries in one day or in a week, plants and animals, maybe not in an entire month. This is because it has a total of 67 million specimens!
28. The largest Buddha statue in the Thai capital sits in his cross-legged meditative posture, nearly 70 meters above the ground. Construction started in 2017 at a cost of 100 million baht (about 3 million euros). The almost unreal image below shows the Buddha statue at the time of its construction. This is the most ambitious project in the country in recent times, reflecting the ongoing reverence for Buddha statues.