FAVORITE IMAGES OF THE WEEK

Anna Redmond/Facebook

Exposed Seawall

This bizarre mass of rocks and seaweed is the result of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit New Zealand last week, thrusting the seawall up and out from the water. The movement of the planet's plates isn't uncommon at all. It's what formed Mount Everest and why South America and Africa fit so nicely together. But while tectonic plates usually move from side to side, the earthquake pushed them up and down instead, exposing this rather alien-looking seawall.

Photograph by Brian Klutch

Buy Your Own Paper Microscope

When Stanford physicist Manu Prakash invented his pocket-sized foldable microscope, called Foldscope, a few years back, his main goal was to make them widely available for any child (or adult) who wanted one. Now he's launched a kickstarter campaign where anyone can reserve a Foldscope of their own for $15. While the cost to create the device is only around 57 to 97 cents, the extra dollars will go toward donating millions of Foldscopes to schools and communities around the world.

ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Calzetti

Oh Hey Spiral Galaxy NGC 3274

NASA's Hubble telescope snapped this image of a spiral galaxy more than 20 million light years away from Earth. The image is a combination of five different filters, incorporating ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light into one shot. If you look closely you can see another galaxy—PGC 213714—in the upper right corner.

NASA

Silver Linings

Astronauts above the Philippine Sea took this shot from aboard the International Space Station. They actually aimed their camera toward the sun, which emphasizes the clouds' shadows and produces a dramatic 3D effect.

Screenshot by author, from YouTube

The Most Luxurious Private Jet

Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is designed to carry 280 people across oceans and between continents. But one special model has been converted to a private plane, complete with a master bedroom and five bathrooms. It's slightly smaller than the average U.S. home, but nearly 100 times the price.