Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. The mosque sits in an artificial lagoon on the banks of the Brunei River. 

Māgha Pūjā Festival, Wat Phra Dhammakaya Temple, Pathum Thani, Thailand. The festival celebrates the creation of the Buddhist monastic code. Each light seen is a candle at the feet of a monk. 

Tram capsule interior, Gateway Arch, St. Louis.  The trams swing like Ferris-wheel cars as they ascend and descend the 630 foot structure.  Photo: Nan Palmero

Annapurna IV and II, Pokhara, Nepal. The highest peak of the massif, Annapurna I, is the 10th highest mountain in the world by elevation, but the deadliest by fatality-to-summit ratio. The south face has been summited just 191 times, and 61 mountaineers have lost their lives in the attempt. The range is named after Annapurna (Sanskrit: अन्नपूर्णा), the Hindu goddess of food and nourishment, who is said to reside there. 

Photo:  Dylan Toh

The Shrine of the Book, Jerusalem. Constructed in 1965, the abstract modernist shrine houses a rotating selection of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of biblical texts written between 400 BCE and the first century CE. The structure is a white dome, with two thirds of the walkable space below ground. The ownership of the scrolls by Israel is disputed by Jordan and Palestine.  Architects: Armand Bartos and Frederick Kiesler

Mt. Fuji illumination installation, Nabana no Sato Park, Kuwana City, Mie prefecture, Japan. Over 8 million LEDs are used to illuminate installations in the park.

Tahoma, or Mount Rainier, the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. The glacial ice on its slopes makes it one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. The largest of the peaks in the Cascade Volcanic Arc, the differential between the land around it and its summit is greater than that of K2, the world’s second tallest mountain. It so dominates the horizon of the surrounding area, including Seattle, that it is often referred to by locals as simply “The Mountain.”  Photo: Cliff W. Estes

The Caspian Sea, as seen through by the European Space Agency’s PROBA-V. The satellite was launched in 2013 to facilitate land use, worldwide vegetation classification, crop monitoring, famine prediction, food security, disaster monitoring and biosphere studies.

Photo: PROBA-V Gallery ESA/BELSPO

A snow covered van in Murmansk (Му́рманск), the world’s most populous city north of the Arctic Circle. During winter, the city receives as little as 3 hours of sunlight. Photo: Serj Ius

Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest, oldest, and most voluminous lake, in winter. Baikal contains 20 percent of the earth’s liquid freshwater, more than exists in the entire Amazon basin. Photo: Gaëlle Bojko

Fabbriche di Careggine, Lucca province, Tuscany. The village, submerged underwater by the construction of a dam in 1946, appears only when the dam is emptied for maintenance. It has not been seen for 25 years.   Photo: Romano Cagnoni