See blue ducks blanket the Thames, a fire truck submerged in a sinkhole, a historic landmark turned purple, and more in the week's best news pictures.

A "handsome" three-foot rodent is among the 40 potentially new species found on Mount Bosavi in central Papua New Guinea, one of the least explored places on Earth, conservationists say.

A meat-eating marsupial, a purring frog, and the first new dolphin species in three decades are among at least 1,300 plant and animal species discovered in Australia since 1999, a new report says.

A peek inside a dense nebula, a brightly colored "butterfly," and mirror-like galaxy reflections predicted by Einstein are among some of the first cosmic beauties snapped by the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope.

An astronaut takes a walk outside, a white dwarf bulks up, a planet finder shows that habitable moons may be out there, and more in the week's best space pictures.

Twice the size of Texas, the remote Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch is home to much of the world's plastic trash, and now a scientific expedition has documented the vast "dump" for the first time.

Almost 40 years after astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean set foot on the moon, a lunar orbiter has snapped a high-res picture of their landing site, complete with footprints and equipment.

A thousand "humans" melt in Berlin, golfers use a cuddly caddy, fires ravage Los Angeles, and more in our roundup of the week's best news pictures.

A wildfire surrounds a historic telescope, a "triple threat" nebula comes to light, a crater's rim creates a "halo" on the moon, and more in the week's best space pictures.

The so-called Station Fire doubled in size Sunday night, threatening thousands of L.A.-area residences and a historic observatory.

Chinese soldiers practice their singing, a "flydog" takes to the air in Hungary, and Greece's hillsides burn in this week's best news photos.

Armed with needle-sharp fangs and powerful limbs sprouting from its head, the creature was found in the world's longest underwater lava tube in the Canary Islands.

NASA's new moon rover goes for a test drive, a telescope spies stars and planets cooking in a chaotic cradle, Martian dust devils leave dark patterns on the red planet, and more in the week's best space pictures.

As the world celebrates Galileo's first telescope demonstration on August 25, 1609, take a trip through time with pictures of the telescope's evolution over the past 400 years.

A long-legged mammal, a sharp-toothed rodent, and an iridescent beetle are among the more than 6,500 fossils recently unearthed in Germany's Messel Pit, where creatures trapped in 47-million-year-old shale have been helping scientists better understand life during the Eocene epoch.