Photograph by Roger Snider

December 2009

Japan—Covered in chrome and gleaming neon, big rigs from across Japan shine at a truck show in Aichi Prefecture. Known as dekotora, most are working trucks—though on long hauls, they're typically not driven with all their lights on.

Photograph by David Barr

December 2009

Antarctica—Cliffs higher than a hundred feet mark the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, a glacier-fed slab the size of France connected to the Antarctic coast. Fissure lines near the edge show where the next iceberg may calve.

Photograph by Valdrin Xhemaj, EPA/Corbis

December 2009

Kosovo—In the village of Donje Ljubinje, local tradition calls for painting a bride's face to ward off bad luck. After the ceremony, women from her new husband's family washed Rasima Biljibani's face clean.

Photograph by Sandro Campardo, EPA/Corbis

November 2009

Switzerland—Curiosity seekers stroll inside a crop circle etched in a Corcelles-près-Payerne wheat field in 2007. More than 200 feet in diameter, the pattern was spied by a Swiss military pilot flying over the Broye region.

Photograph by Monica Szczupider

November 2009

Cameroon—At the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, more than a dozen residents form a gallery of grief, looking on as Dorothy—a beloved female felled in her late 40s by heart failure—is borne to her burial.

Read the story behind the photo.

Photograph by Jonathan and Angela Scott, NHPA/Photoshot

November 2009

Antarctica—Radiating charisma on a 23°F morning, a three-foot-tall emperor penguin strikes a pose on the pack ice of the Amundsen Sea. The photographers were taking a month-long cruise aboard a Russian icebreaker.

Photograph by Jed Weingarten

October 2009

United States—A kayaker plunges 70 feet into winter water at Washington State's Outlet Falls. His January 2009 descent was one of only five tallied on the Klickitat River tributary, here swollen by floods and sallow from runoff.

Photograph by Kieran Doherty, Reuters

October 2009

England—At London's Tooting Bec pool, four fancifully attired, color-coded women kick off the Cold Water Swimming Championships. More than 300 bathers, ages 12 to 85, competed and promoted the thrill of the chill.

Photograph by Fabrice Cofrini, AFP/Getty Images

October 2009

Switzerland—Neither a bird nor a plane, "Jet Man"—aka adventurer Yves Rossy—soars above the Alps on jet-propelled wings during a five-minute, 186-mile-an-hour flight. He has since flown over the English Channel.

Photograph by Tim Dirven, Panos Pictures

September 2009

Romania—Two young women stroll through Budești, chic heels and jackets augmenting traditional church attire. Such styles reflect a migratory trend: After working abroad, many here are carrying back money and modernity.

Photograph by Charles Krebs

September 2009

United States—Like brushes saturated with paint, the wing scales of a sunset moth drip with color. Shot in a Washington State photo studio using a microscope, their iridescence is revealed only in this close-up view.

Photograph by Gil Nartea, AFP/Getty

September 2009

Philippines—Children gaze at the storybook sight of a partial solar eclipse over Manila Bay. The result of a syzygy—an instance when the Earth, moon, and sun are aligned—it was visible on parts of four continents.

Photograph by Emilio Morenatti, AP Images

August 2009

Pakistan—Women and children await registration and relief at the Jalozai refugee camp. Since last summer, some one million Pakistanis have fled the fighting between the military and militants near the Afghan border.

Photograph by Bryan and Cherry Alexander

August 2009

Greenland—Eight hundred miles south of the North Pole, a cavern of stalactite-like stratus clouds—churned by 90-mile-an-hour winds—and the light of a bruised dawn paint an apocalyptic portrait over Inglefield Bay.

Photograph by Brandon Cole

August 2009

Mexico—Thirteen feet and a thousand-plus pounds of great white shark bump a diver's cage and roil the waters off Guadalupe Island. The region, rich in seal and sea lion rookeries, is a hot spot for the powerful predators.

Photograph by Dana Stephenson, Getty Images

July 2009

Tonga—Plumes of ash, smoke, and steam billow thousands of feet into the air as an undersea volcano erupts on the uninhabited island of Hunga Ha'apai. The fallout, rock detritus known as scoria, has since enlarged the landmass.

Photograph by Angel M. Fitor

July 2009

Tanzania—After two weeks of in-mouth incubation, a school of perhaps 200 cichlid fry—each less than half an inch long—swim free of their mother, searching for a plankton meal in the cerulean waters of Lake Tanganyika.

Photograph by Jaipal Singh, EPA/Corbis

July 2009

India—In Jammu, a flower of flame blooms from a man's kerosene-filled mouth. Devotees of Sikhism, the world's fifth largest organized religion, were marking the 342nd birthday of Guru Gobind Singh, a founder of the faith.

Photograph by Jim Reed

June 2009

United States—A brown tornado towers perhaps 4,000 feet above the parched plains of Kansas. In 2007 the state set a U.S. record, tallying 141 twisters. The mark was short-lived, though: 187 tore through in 2008.

Photograph by Carla Thomas, NASA/Reuters

June 2009

United States—The shuttle Endeavour—deft in orbit but incapable of terrestrial flight—catches a post-mission piggyback on a 747, soaring over California's Mojave Desert en route to Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

Photograph by Vasily Fedosenko, Reuters

June 2009

Belarus—Naked on an 18°F day, Valentsin Tolkachev clears an icy canal for swimming. The 69-year-old started the Optimalists—a Minsk-based club with 200-some members—in 1989 to promote hale activities in rural settings.

Photograph by Yva Momatiuk and John Eastcott

May 2009

South Georgia Island—A snowy morning offers a peaceful study in contrasts as southern elephant seals and king penguins share a rookery. Antarctic spring brings some 400,000 of each species to this remote British territory.

Photograph by Bob Krist, Corbis

May 2009

England—Lost in a wending laurel maze at Cornwall's Glendurgan—a series of verdant subtropical gardens planted privately in the 1820s and bequeathed to the National Trust in 1962—two visitors huddle in a hut.

Photograph by Chiara Goia, Reportage by Getty Images

May 2009

China—All is alabaster at a sculpture factory in Dangcheng, where marble and chalk dust suffuse the air and workers churn out relatively inexpensive copies of iconic Western works for foreign and domestic clients.

Photograph by David Doubilet

April 2009

Indonesia—See dusk in the Dampier Strait through a half-submerged lens and glimpse two distinct worlds. Under a cloud-slung sky, fishermen work on wooden boats. Beneath a mirror-calm surface, waters flash with baitfish.

Photograph by Ng Han Guan, AP Images

April 2009

China—A member of a ceremonial honor guard inspects his cohort's alignment, making sure it's suitable for the arrival of world leaders at the 2008 Asia-Europe Meeting, held at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Photograph by Alexander Heilner

April 2009

United Arab Emirates—Peninsulas of prosperity, the "fronds" of the $14-billion Palm Jumeirah—the first of three planned resort islands in Dubai—jut into the Persian Gulf. Building began in 2001; it may end in 2013.

Photograph by Sukree Sukplang, Reuters

March 2009

Thailand—In a race to emerge at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo, one eight-inch Siamese crocodile wins by a head. Few such crocs exist in the wild, yet 20,000 are born each year during the zoo's May-to-August hatching festival.

Photograph by Jeremy Lock

March 2009

Djibouti—A break in training exercises lets Marine Cpl. Brett Herman try out his break-dancing moves during a "freestyle" contest at Camp Lemonier. The former French barracks is the sole U.S. base on the Horn of Africa.

Photograph by Marsel van Oosten

March 2009

Madagascar—Sunrise reveals light traffic—a lone oxcart—along the Avenue of the Baobabs. The 80-foot-tall "upside-down trees" in the Menabe region could become the island country's first national monument.

Photograph by Tim Flach

February 2009

England—Like a porcelain figurine carved into repose, the fetus of a foal floats in a jar. The 85-day-old, 5.5-inch-long colt was removed postmortem and preserved in formaldehyde after its mother, a Thoroughbred, died.

Photograph by Smiley N. Pool, Getty Images

February 2009

United States—Limned by Hurricane Ike, an abstract expressionist expanse of oil-sheened floodwater surrounds a pump jack—a mechanical device used to extract oil—near High Island, Texas.

Photograph by Sigit Pamungkas, Reuters

February 2009

Indonesia—On the first day of Ramadan, in a mosque filled with white-robed women, one child stands up and stands out. During the month-long holiday, Muslims seeking spiritual purification fast from dawn till dusk.

Photograph by Dimitar Dilkoff, AFP/Getty Images

January 2009

Bulgaria—Epiphany Day at an icy Sofia lake finds young men in hot pursuit. Belief holds that the first to reach the wooden cross, thrown by an Eastern Orthodox priest, will enjoy a year of good health.

Photograph by Reuters/China Daily

January 2009

China—Workers apply a rust-resistant primer to a coal-fired power plant in Huaibei, a major industrial center. Soon they'll paint it black, adding a second, waterproof coat to this 470-foot-tall cooling tower.

Photograph by Marsel van Oosten

January 2009

Zambia—A lone bull elephant breakfasts at first light near the precipice of Victoria Falls. With the Zambezi River near its seasonal ebb, once submerged walkways—and fresh foraging possibilities—present themselves.