Istanbul-based photographer Rena Effendi traveled to Gyumri, Armenia to photograph a preserved Satyrus effendi, a rare and endemic butterfly named after her father the late Soviet Azerbaijani entomologist Rustam Effendi.
Rena Effendi/National Geographic
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched from Cape Canaveral in the early hours of June 19, streaks above a stand of bald cypress trees.
Mac Stone/ National Geographic
Under a harvest moon on a hazy morning in Brazil's Emas National Park, a lowland tapir known to park staff as Preciosa ambles down a road.
Katie Orlinsky/National Geograph
NASA's Space Launch System looms over Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B in March as the rocket awaits testing.
Dan Winters/National Geographic
A rat tries to rescue a trapped comrade at Tel Aviv University.
Paolo Verzone/National Geographi
Madeira's laurel forests spring from a mountainous Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic west of Africa.
Orsolya Haarberg/National Geogra
Photographed at night with an infrared camera, a spotted hyena that scientists nicknamed Palazzo submissively grins and lays her ears back as Moulin Rouge, the clan's dominant female at the time, towers over her. Palazzo's cub peers out from between them.
Jen Guyton/National Geographic
A small refinery on the roof of a laboratory at ETH Zurich pulls carbon dioxide and water directly from the air and feeds them into a reactor that concentrates solar radiation, generating extreme heat. That splits the molecules, creating a mixture that ultimately can be processed into kerosene or methanol.
Davide Monteleone/National Geogr
Manatees (above right) adorn a convenience store's mural in Crystal River, a coastal city in western Florida known as the Manatee Capital of the World.
Erika Larsen/National Geographic
After lying dormant for 800 years, Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula erupted twice in less than 17 months, most recently August 3.
Chris Burkard/National Geographi
Here, heat and drought "threaten a delicate balance of life," says Ladzinski life that includes populations of inquisitive meerkats.
Keith Ladzinski
An elephant gathers the fruit of a Detarium macrocarpum tree off the forest floor in Gabon's Lopé National Park.
Jasper Doest/National Geographic
Visitors ascend the spiraling 150-foot- high boardwalk in the yellowing autumn at Denmark's Camp Adventure near Copenhagen.
Orsolya Haarberg/National Geogra
University of Virginia neuroscientists record the brain activity of nine-month-old Ian Boardman, while brushing his skin to activate nerve fiber responses.
Lynn Johnson/National Geographic
Ukrainian refugee Ludmyla Kuchebko, 72, in the Polish town of Przemyśl near the border.
Anastasia Taylor-Lind/National G
To create this image of Bears Ears, Stephen Wilkes took 2,092 photos over 36 hours, combining 44 of them to show a sunrise, a full moon, and a rare alignment of four planets.
Stephen Wilkes/National Geograph
With winged arms in a protective spread, this relief of the Egyptian goddess Isis has stood guard for millennia on the stone sarcophagus of the pharaoh Tutankhamun.
Paolo Verzone/National Geographi
Around Vostok and other southern Line Islands, in the remote central Pacific, abundant small reef fish support a thriving population of top predators.
Enric Sala/National Geographic
Armando Salazar, a member of the Spanish military, helps scientists collect samples during a 2021 eruption at La Palma's Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge.
Arturo Rodriguez
When cracks opened up in the Cumbre Vieja ridge in September 2021, they set off one of the most destructive volcanic eruptions in the Canary Islands in 500 years.
Carsten Peter/National Geographi
With its Artemis I mission, NASA is kicking off an ambitious plan to return humans to the moon. For the scheduled launch, this uncrewed trip's commander would be the "moonikin" Campos.
Dan Winters/National Geographic
For a peso (less than two cents), internet vending machines bring the boundless digital world to Filipinos for a few minutes in a Manila neighborhood.
Hannah Reyes Morales/National Ge
Unathi Madalane (at left) and Tshiamo Maretela enjoy the beach in Durban.
Wayne Lawrence/National Geograph
Six- month-old panda cubs snacking and playing as part of her long-term focus on giant panda conservation.
Ami Vitale/National Geographic
Captured via drone, caribou from the Western Arctic herd gallop across a valley near the small town of Ambler during their spring migration.
Katie Orlinsky/National Geograph
Wild Asian elephants mingle with cattle at a garbage dump near Minneriya, in central Sri Lanka.
Brent Stirton/National Geographi
At sunset on April 27, Evan Green caught climber Thomas Moore walking amid the tents pitched at Camp I framed by Everest (at left), Lhotse (center), and Nuptse (at right).
Evan Green
Viktor, a 39-year-old male bonobo, resides in Texas at the Fort Worth Zoo, where he's known for interacting with visitors.
Vincent J. Musi/National Geograp
Quannah Rose Chasinghorse uses her visibility to advocate for concerns of Indigenous peoples.
Kiliii Yüyan/National Geographi
Blue-and-yellow macaws perch on a rooftop in Caracas, waiting to be fed by locals.
Alejandro Cegarra/National Geogr
A long camera exposure blurs the crowd of tourists inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Sasha Arutyunova/National Geogra
Oksana Hapbarova (at left), 18, says that she and her mother (also named Oksana, 39), waited out Russian attacks in a Kyiv bomb shelter. "For six days in the shelter, I couldn't sleep, because I was scared I would never wake up," says the younger Hapbarova.
Anastasia Taylor-Lind/National G
It's tempting to think of ceramics as strong yet brittle, like a coffee cup shattered on a kitchen floor. But to scientists at U.S.-based glass and ceramics manufacturer Corning, they're flexible and durable.
Christopher Payne/National Geogr
Five weeks into the journey of the National Geographic expedition ship Polar Sun, photographer Renan Ozturk found himself exploring a bay off the coast of Greenland.
Renan Ozturk/National Geographic
Esther Horvath photographed the Agulhas II plowing through thick Antarctic ice floes.
Esther Horvath