12 Of The Most Powerful Science Photos Of This Week

A Sumatran orangutan holds her one day old baby at Chester Zoo. Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered – there are thought to be only 6,500 remaining on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, which is the only place this species are found in the wild.

The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft launches, carrying astronauts Andreas Mogense, Aidyn Aimbetov and commander Sergei Volkov to the International Space Station.

Three hurricanes – Kilo, Ignacio, and Jimena – traveling over the Pacific Ocean earlier this week. This was the first month in recorded history that three Category 4 storms were raging over the Pacific at the same time.

Scientists working in the andrology lab at the Royan Institute in Tehran, Iran. This week Science magazine ran a special package on science in Iran.

Lions attack a buffalo in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Research published this week in the journal Science found that an increase in the number of prey in an area doesn't lead to an increase in predators.

Rivers leading into a sinkhole in Greenland's ice sheet. In July, a group of scientists set up camp here to study how the water is transported from ice sheet to ocean.

Wildebeests and zebras prepare to cross a river in Masai Mara as part of a yearly migration that will see thousands make the journey from the Serengeti to the Masai Mara national park.

Astronaut Scott Kelly took this photo from the International Space Station on August 31. On the left hand side, in the darkness, you can just about make out the space station's solar panels.

Waste plastics strewn on the Bao beach near Dakar, Senegal. Around two-thirds of the population of Senegal live in the Dakar coastal area, and 90% of the country's industry is located there. The country is one of the most at-risk nations when it comes to sea level rise from climate change.

Lake Amadeus, in Australia’s Northern Territory, captured by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2A satellite.

A rescued murre sits in a net at the International Bird Rescue in Fairfield, California. The centre is currently hosting 45 murres after a seeing a surge of malnourished birds being found on beaches and brought in. It's been speculated that warmer temperatures in the Pacific Ocean could be driving fish that the birds eat deeper underwater.

This image was released by the European Southern Observatory in celebration of 15 years of its Very Large Telescope. It shows a group of dust clouds known as the Thackeray globules silhouetted against the glowing gas of stellar nursery IC 2944.