1. Swallowed whole A rainbow trout fingerling peers out from the gullet of a northern pike at the Alaska Department of Fish & Game aquarium in Anchorage.
2. A romp in Russia A polar bear cub plays near his mother at the Moscow Zoo .
3. Moonshot Flying at nearly 35,000 feet, a jet passes over the disk of a winter half moon above Boston on Jan. 3. The jet leaves contrails in its wake due to the temperature difference between the hot engine exhaust and the cold air
4. Red Square reflection The Kremlin's Spassky Tower and passers-by are reflected in the wet cobblestones of Moscow's Red Square.
5. A galaxy's sharp edge An image produced by the Hubble Space Telescope, released March 1, shows a perfect "edge-on" perspective of the galaxy NGC 4013, with huge clouds of dust and gas extending above the galaxy's main disk
6. Light of the world This composite image shows what Earth looks like at night. City lights highlight developed areas of the planet.
7. Mother and child An ethnic Albanian refugee from Selce, Macedonia, and her child look through the window of a bus as they arrive in Prizren in Kosovo after fleeing the fighting in Macedonia two days earlier.
8. A useful lesson A German Shepherd named Pepper sits with two endangered Bengal tiger cubs and a cougar cub, far right, at the home of veterinarian Rob Zammit outside Sydney, Australia
9. Great white whale A beluga whale swims in a tank at the Vancouver Aquarium
10.Puppy love Crystal, a year-old black Labrador-Dalmatian mix, peers through a heart-shaped hole in a fence
11.The gathering storm Dark clouds roll over Blair, Neb., bringing thunder and flashes of lightning.
12. The little duckling who could Mallard ducklings wait their turn May 14 as a sibling struggles to make it up a curb in South Bend, Ind. The mother, who had already cleared the obstacle, flirted with traffic for 20 minutes before leading her offspr
13. Mideast flare-up A Palestinian youth uses a slingshot to fire stones at Israeli soldiers from behind a barricade of burning tires.
14. Rainbow times two An afternoon storm brought a double rainbow over downtown Chillicothe, Ohio.
15. Fury from above Lightning ripples over the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas.
16. Grand old night Tanner Mann, 8, of Hortonville, Wis., gets a good seat on top of his mother's car July 4 for the fireworks show at Riverside Park in New London
17.Un-bear-able heat Koluk the polar bear goes headfirst into the pool at the Albuquerque Rio Grande Zoo in Albuquerque, N.M.
18. Stellar light show From ground-based telescopes, the "ant nebula" resembles the head and thorax of a garden ant.
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