Glowing gecko and Hurricane Ian — October’s best science images

Eye of the storm. The Operational Land Imager aboard NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of Hurricane Ian’s eye — a central zone of calm weather — three hours before the storm crashed into the coast of Florida. When the hurricane made landfall, it brought heavy rain and winds that were fast enough to tear the roofs off homes and snap power lines, leading to widespread destruction. At least 147 people lost their lives, making Ian the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida since 1935.

Branching out. Gullies formed by rainwater erosion span out in a tree-like pattern on either side of this road in Tibet, an autonomous region in Southwest China. To capture this stunning view, photographer Li Ping slept alone in a roadside car park overnight before using a drone in the early hours. The shot won the grand prize at this year’s Nature Conservancy photography competition.

Left behind. Elephant keeper Kiapi Lakupanai rests next to a one-month-old calf in the quarantine area at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy in Samburu, Kenya. The calf was rescued from a dry well, where it had become trapped while the rest of the herd moved on. The sanctuary has carried out many such rescue operations and has seen an influx of calves that have been orphaned or abandoned because of the current severe drought in the area. The conditions mean that adult elephants are thirsty and exhausted — and dry wells cover the terrain, causing many young elephants to get lost or separated from their mothers.

First steps. This robot exoskeleton has allowed eight-year-old David Zabala to walk independently for the first time. Zabala was born with cerebral palsy, a condition that affects movement and coordination, and he usually has to rely on a wheelchair to get around. But with the Atlas 2030 exoskeleton, which has battery-powered mechanical joints that adapt to the wearer’s movements, he has been able to engage in activities such as playing with a ball and drawing. Here, he is taking part in a rehabilitation session with his mother and a physical therapist at the Association for People with Cerebral Palsy in Mexico City.

Trapping zone. A previously undescribed ecosystem is creating an oasis of marine life in the depths of the Indian Ocean. Here, researchers in a submersible vessel called Omega Seamaster II explore the ‘trapping zone’, where sharks and other fish feed on swarms of small organisms known as micronekton. These organisms usually migrate from the deep sea to the surface at night, and dive back into the deep during the day. But in this area, the micronekton become trapped at a depth of 500 metres, creating a biodiversity hotspot. “We’re particularly intrigued at this depth — why is this occurring?” said Lucy Woodall, a marine biologist at the University of Oxford, UK, and principal scientist for the Nekton Maldives Mission, which discovered the zone. “That’s our critical question we need to ask next. Why are we seeing the patterns that we have observed on this expedition? This will enable us to understand the deep ocean in much better terms.”

The sky’s the limit. Every six months, NASA’s NEOWISE spacecraft completes one trip halfway around the Sun, taking images in all directions. These images are combined to make a mosaic image of the entire sky, like the one shown above. By observing the whole sky, the mission can search for distant galaxies, or survey groups of cosmic objects. Astronomers recently combined 18 NEOWISE all-sky maps to make time-lapse images revealing how distant features change position or brightness. “If you go outside and look at the night sky, it might seem like nothing ever changes, but that’s not the case,” said Amy Mainzer, principal investigator for NEOWISE at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Stars are flaring and exploding. Asteroids are whizzing by. Black holes are tearing stars apart. The universe is a really busy, active place.”