Encircling the dark: Eyecatching photos this week

Image: JOSH EDELSON / AFP
The moon eclipses the sun seen from Indiana, US, during a total solar eclipse that swept across North America on April 8, 2024. This year's path of totality briefly plunged communities in Mexico, the United States and Canada along the path into darkness. It took just 1 hour and 40 minutes for the moon's shadow to race more than 6,500 kilometres across the continent.

Image: Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters
A Christie's employee adjusts the painting "Le melon entamé, 1760" by Jean Simeon Chardin (1699-1779) during its presentation before the auction at Christie's auction house in Paris, France, on April 5, 2024. In a sense, the painting's circular format is an ode to roundness, encapsulating the balance of composition, light, colour, and shape of the fruit itself.
 
Image: PRAKASH MATHEMA / AFP
Handmade copper and brassware plates are displayed in Chobar Machhindranath temple in Kirtipur on the outskirts of Kathmandu on April 2, 2024. Brass plates are used in traditional Nepali households as Pooja and serving plates.

Image: Roman PILIPEY / AFP
A person walks in the dark during a blackout following Russian attacks on the city's energy infrastructure in Kharkiv on April 8, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This type of bombing, causing Kharkiv's 1.3 million residents to face an average of six hours without electricity daily, has been labelled a war crime by the European Commission (EC).

Image: Abdel Ghani BASHIR / AFP
Muslim worshippers gathered to pray around the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca on April 5, 2024, the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

Image: Christian Hartmann / Reuters
Anton Foley, climate justice activist with Fridays For Future and Aurora, Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and Rosmarie Wydler-Walti, of the Swiss elderly women group Senior Women for Climate Protection, speak to journalists after the verdict on three climate cases, where applicants have argued that government inaction on climate change violates human rights, at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, April 9, 2024.

Image: R. Satish BABU / AFP
Chennai Super Kings' Mustafizur Rahman in action during an Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 cricket match. CSK's Bangladesh pacer climbed atop the Purple Cap table with nine wickets after Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders match in Chennai on April 8, 2024.
 
Image: Tiziana FABI / AFP
A picture shows the 'tennis ball' heels of US actress Zendaya during a photocall in Rome on April 8, 2024, for the release of the movie 'Challengers' directed by Luca Guadagnino. The actress served up a fun fashion moment promoting her latest film, in which she plays a rising tennis star.
 
Image: WAHYUDI / AFP
A 75 kg newborn female Sumatran elephant stands next to her mother, a 20-year-old elephant named Puja, at the Sebanga Elephant Conservation Center in Bengkalis, Indonesia, on April 6, 2024.
 
Image: Juan BARRETO / AFP
The invasive cannonball jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris) is pictured off the coast of Chuao, Aragua State, Venezuela, on April 5, 2024. Hundreds of jellyfish are afloat in the turquoise waters of Aragua, a surreal scene attributed to warming waters from climate change. Climate change has decimated fishing stocks, causing much worry to the fishermen on the Venezuelan coast.

Image: AFP / China OUT
This photo, taken on April 7, 2024, shows a woman wearing a brain monitoring machine by the Chinese company Yiruide Group at the 2024 World Health Expo in Wuhan, in central China's Hubei province.