Mother Nature Network

Hubble celebrates birthday with Horsehead Nebula photo

The Horsehead’s dramatic pillar will disintegrate in another 5 million years or so, astronomers say.

Photo of the day: Chill canine takes scooter for a joy ride

Indonesian dog lover Handoko Njotokusumo, 57, and his golden retriever Ace ride through traffic on their scooter on March 2 in Surabaya, Java. Handoko, a retired business man, takes his pup on regular rides around the city on the weekend

Pony sweaters: All the rage in the Shetland Islands
Shetland pony ambassadors Fivla and Vitamin model handmade wool sweaters knitted by local Shetlander Doreen Brown at the Thorndale Shetland Driving Centre in the Shetland Islands of Scotland.
 
According to caretakers Frances Taylor and Jo Tonkinson, the white pony, Fivla, is a calm, loving 17-year-old, who is very good friends with 18-year-old Vitamin, the black pony. The photo op is part of the Year of Natural Scotland, a campaign organized by national tourism organization VisitScotland to showcase the nation’s outstanding natural beauty and encourage tourism.

Stunning new images of Earth at night
The NOAA uses nighttime light photographs to examine population and urbanization changes around the planet.

Photo of the day: Quaint sewer living for Colombian couple and their dog
Miguel Restrepo, 62, helps his dog, Blackie, get out of the abandoned sewer where they live on Dec. 4 in Medellin, Colombia. Restrepo is a homeless former drug addict who has lived underground with his wife Maria Garcia for more than 20 years. Many homeless people in Colombia seek shelter underground due to the drug trafficking and gang violence that plagues Medellin.

See more photos of Blackie and his underground home.

Photo of the day: Ridiculously cute sloth baby flashes a goofy grin
A 2-month-old sloth sticks it tongue out while resting on the stomach of its mother Charlotte on Nov. 28 at the Halle Zoo in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The Halle Zoo, which was founded 111 years ago, began breeding sloths in 1996.

Photo of the day: Overfishing activists protest in elaborate bluefin tuna costumes
Greenpeace activists wearing bluefin tuna costumes participate in a protest against overfishing on Nov. 29 in front of South Korea’s embassy in Manila, Philippines. One week before a major global summit on Pacific tuna fisheries, the activists are seeking conservation commitments from fishing powers to reduce the overfishing of the endangered bluefin tuna in the Pacific.

Photo of the day: Pandering to pandas
Pandas reach for food suspended on a line by Chen Yinrong, a Chinese contestant of “Project Panda: The Global Search for a Chengdu Pambassador,” on Nov. 17.
 
Over the course of 10 weeks, hundreds of thousands of people from across the world competed for the chance to become a panda caretaker in Chengdu. In addition to Yinrong, this year’s winners included Jerome Serge Pouille of France and Melissa Rose Katz of the U.S. The winners will serve as Pambassadors for one year, during which they will receive training on panda caretaking and raise awareness of conservation issues.

Photo of the day: Pike the polar bear frolics in snow
A very happy Pike rolls around in the manmade snow inside his enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo. Given that the typical life expectancy of a wild polar bear is 15 years, Pike and Ulu are some of the oldest bears residing in an accredited U.S. zoo.

Photo of the day: Kimchi for the poor
More than 2,000 women gather at City Hall in Seoul, South Korea on Nov. 15 to make kimchi to donate to the poor in preparation for winter. Kimchi, a traditional Korean dish of fermented vegetables mixed with chili paste and other seasonings, is a staple in the South Korean diet. Typically eaten with rice or served as a side dish to a main meal, kimchi is considered one of the world’s healthiest foods because it is low in calories but high in vitamins, dietary fiber and probiotics that aid digestion.