These are 15 of the best photos scientists took in 2017 - and they show the world in stunning ways
In Nahuelbuta National Park, Chile, a tiny acari gets trapped by an elastic bluish thread of a spiderweb.
At the current Pu'u O'o eruption site of the active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii's Volcano National Park, the lava flows that created the Big Island still make it grow every year.
A family of olive oil droplets hang from a soft silk thread.
This is a 50-hour old embryo from a tardigrade (aka water bear), a type of tiny invertebrate that is so hardy it can survive in space.
A polar bear near the eastern Greenland coast gazes into the water.
These Arctic terns on the island of Svalbard made a clever home on a conveniently placed abandoned shovel.
The small tree frog emerges from the Brazilian semi-arid Caatinga desert to mate and turns from brown to green when the summer rains arrive.
The total eclipse of 2017 seen from the path of totality in Georgia.
Russian research vessel Akademik Tryoshnikov rests its bow against the Mertz Glacier in Eastern Antarctica to deploy an underwater drone.
An Indian roller shows off its scorpion prey by tossing it up into the air.
The rocky Chilean landscape by the European Southern Observatory is like an otherworldly frame for the cosmic display of the Milky Way.
This photo of a Twin Otter airplane flying over a crevassing ice sheet in Southern Antarctica was shot in 1995 and is now scanned into the British Antarctic Survey.
Ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere create the image of a light pillar underneath the moon as seen from the South Pole.
Killer whales suddenly emerge in a bay at Subantarctic Marion Island, startling a huddle of King Penguins.
Pitcher plants secrete nectar along the rim of their pitcher to attract and trap insects, but one very special ant species is able to climb in and out of the pitcher for a snack.
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