An Italian photographer travelled to Chile where he visited several star-gazing sites, home to some of the world's most advanced telescopes, located in the spectacular setting of the Atacama desert. Surrounded by vast desert and distant snow topped mountains, the enormous satellite dishes, dome-shaped buildings and telescopes are run by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) , an intergovernmental body dedicated to observing space. Photographer Alberto Ghizzi Panizza was granted access to several observatory sites.
Playing, splashing and generally messing around, these polar bears show they certainly have a soft spot for the water, and not just each other .
With a dust covered coat hung from a wardrobe door and a pair of glasses left on a shelf, a remote farmhouse lies abandoned in the Welsh countryside .
BOXING DAY has come early for this pair of feisty squirrels, as their Christmas party quickly turns sour .
CAMPED out in the middle of a forest, these unusual hut hotels take you back to basics .
THIS DANGER-mad female pensioner could be the oldest Brit to cage dive with CROCODILES .
A cheeky owl fancies a game of hide and seek as it peeps out from behind a tree .
MOUTH OPEN wide, this little stoat appears to be in mid-song as he belts out a tune for his onlookers .
COURAGEOUS CLIMBERS scale frozen waterfalls in Canada, as the ice threatens to collapse beneath them .
Armed with a snorkel, flippers and her skimpy bikini, an intrepid female free diver swims alongside an array of reef sharks .
SQUEEZING their furry faces through a hole in a tree, a trio of curious baby squirrels leave their nest for the first time to explore their surroundings .
From vivid greens to glowing pinks, the colours of the aurora borealis fill the night sky above a snow covered Lapland .
With the full moon looming behind him, this polar bear nestles down for the night .