Each year, Greenwich’s Royal Observatory considers photographs of the cosmos for its Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. The 16th edition of the competition does not disappoint. From distant spinning galaxies to dazzling auroras on our own planet, this year’s entrants show off everything the heavens have to offer.
If you’re in the London area, you can see the selected photos in real life at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. But if you’re not, you can check out the selected finalists below.
“A Cosmic Firework: The Geminid Meteor Shower”
The colorful stars are the Geminid meteor shower, seen from La Palma, one of the Canary Islands. The Milky Way also appears in the background.
“An imitation of the Milky Way”
The galaxy NGC 6744 is located 30 million light-years from Earth and appears similar to what our own galaxy looks like from that distance.
“A Night with the Valkyries”
A beautiful combination of pink, yellow and green hues lights up the sky above Iceland’s Eystrahorn mountain during a geomagnetic storm in December 2024.
“A whale sailing the sun”
This remarkably detailed image shows the surface of the sun. In the upper left corner of the sun, a plasma filament “swims” across the surface of the star, looking a bit like a whale.
“Abandoned house”
An abandoned house in the Namib Desert in Namibia, with the Milky Way above, makes for a stunning contrast. The shot reminds me a bit of the landscapes in Courage the Cowardly Dog—anyone else?
“Ancestral rocks”
These rock formations are located in a caldera in the Teide National Park of the Canary Islands. Behind the formations is the arc of the Milky Way.
“Arctic Dragon”
As the title suggests, the Northern Lights above Iceland’s Arctic mountain Henge resemble a bright green dragon.
“Auroral Touch of the Milky Way, a Close Encounter”
The deep red colours of the Northern Lights beneath the Milky Way, seen from Castle Hill in New Zealand.
“Cosmos in reflection”
This trippy photo captures the reflection of light from different sources in the night sky, bouncing off some of the 12,000 mirrors at a power plant in China.
“Earth and Galaxy Show”
A volcanic crater in Japan, with the Milky Way above it.
“GUM 12 the Gum Nebula (remnant of the Vela supernova)”
This filamentary blue structure is part of the Vela supernova, which exploded about 11,000 years ago.
“Hunter Moon and the ISS”
The October full moon is also called a Hunter’s Moon. In the foreground of the natural satellite is the International Space Station (lower right).
“M81, a spiral galaxy with a grand design”
A galaxy 11.75 million light-years away, in the constellation Ursa Major.
“M100 (The Foehn Galaxy) and Ceres”
The dwarf planet Ceres is seen here as four bright spots moving in front of the Blowdryer galaxy (formerly M100).
“The scream of a dying star”
This eerie photo of the afterglow of a supernova takes its name from Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”; the stellar remains do indeed resemble a person crying.
“Misty mountains”
The dust and gas structures of the Pelican Nebula, seen through a telescope in Hungary.
“Martian Dementors”
The Martian landscape as seen by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The image abstracts the landscape to the point that the terrain looks like a piece of a menacing creature.
“Observations at night”
A mesmerizing image from the Isaac Newton Telescope in the Canary Islands, with the Cygnus region of the Milky Way visible at the top right.
“Run to Carina”
This fascinating photo from Namibia shows a stone statue of a person in mid-step. The Carina Nebula, which the Webb Space Telescope imaged as one of its first science targets, is visible at upper right.
“Saturn with six moons”
See Saturn, the ringed planet, accompanied by six of its moons. On the left, you can see Rhea, Enceladus and Mimas as small dots. Dione is visible at the lower right, Titan at the upper right and Tethys is about to disappear behind Saturn itself.
“Snake-like”
These are the remains of a pier on Snettisham beach in Norfolk, under a long exposure of the starry sky.
“Solar pulsation”
Shown here is a sunspot erupting on the surface of the sun. Sunspots are dark areas on the surface of the sun that are associated with the star’s magnetic field.
“The blue details of M45 The Pleiades”
The bright blue light of the Pleiades, seen from Nerpio, Spain.
“The Dance of Jupiter’s Moons”
Jupiter with its moons Io and Ganymede. Io is an attractive target for scientists, given its desolate and volcanic landscape.
“The fire-breathing dragon”
Here is another aurora that reminds of a mythical flying snake. This photo is in black and white, an interesting approach to one of the most famous vivid natural phenomena on Earth.
“The Milky Way Devourer”
This ominous image predicts the demise of a galaxy (top left) threatened by CG4, a giant cloud of gas and dust in space.
“The inner dust lanes of M104 (the Sombrero galaxy)”
This image, taken with a telescope at the El Sauce Observatory in Chile, shows the incredibly flat M104, also known as the Sombrero Galaxy, down to the dust that permeates the object.
“The daytime moon transit from the International Space Station”
A composite image of the ISS passing over the moon.
“The palette of the Himalayas”
An iridescent rainbow of the Sun’s corona as seen in altostratus clouds over the Himalayas.
“Total solar eclipse”
An undeniably obligatory view of a total solar eclipse. This was captured in Australia in April 2023; the image consists of seven overlapping photos capturing different stages of the eclipse.