Every year, the Royal Observatory Greenwich selects photos of the cosmos for its Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. The 16th edition of the competition doesn’t disappoint. From distant rotating galaxies to the brilliant northern lights on our own planet, this year’s entries showcase everything the sky has to offer.
If you’re in the London area, you can see the shortlisted photos in person at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. But if you’re not in the area, you can check out the finalists below.
“A Cosmic Firework: The Geminid Meteor Shower”
The colorful shooting stars represent the Geminids meteor shower, as seen from La Palma, one of the Canary Islands. The Milky Way also appears in the background.
“A Milky Way Impersonator”
The galaxy NGC 6744 is 30 million light-years from Earth and resembles what our own galaxy would look like from that distance.
“A Night with the Valkyries”
A beautiful combination of pinks, yellows and greens lights up the sky above Iceland’s Eystrahorn mountain during a geomagnetic storm in December 2024.
“A whale sailing in the sun”
This astonishingly detailed image reveals the surface of the Sun. Toward the upper left quarter of the Sun, a filament of plasma that looks a bit like a whale “swims” across the surface of the star.
“Abandoned house”
An abandoned house in the Namib Desert, Namibia, with the Milky Way hanging above it, is a striking contrast. The photo 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 Teide National Park, Canary Islands. Behind these formations is the arc of the Milky Way.
“Arctic Dragon”
According to the title, the aurora over the Arctic Henge in Iceland resembles a bright green dragon.
“Aurora Touch: The Milky Way’s Close Encounter”
The deep reds of the Aurora Australis beneath the arc of the Milky Way, seen from Castle Hill in New Zealand.
“The Cosmos in Reflection”
This trippy photo captures the reflection of light from various sources in the night sky, reflected in some of the 12,000 mirrors at a power plant in China.
“Earth and Milky Way Show”
A volcanic crater in Japan, the Milky Way above.
“GUM 12, the Gum Nebula (Vela supernova remnant)”
This blue filamentary structure is part of the Vela supernova, which exploded about 11,000 years ago.
“Hunter’s Moon and the ISS”
The October full moon is also called the Hunter’s Moon. In the foreground of the natural satellite is the International Space Station (bottom right).
“M81, a spiral galaxy with a grand design”
A galaxy located 11.75 million light-years away, located in the constellation Ursa Major.
“M100 (The Hair Dryer Galaxy) and Ceres”
The dwarf planet Ceres is seen here as four bright points, transiting in front of the Hairdryer Galaxy (formerly M100).
“The Cry of a Dying Star”
This strange image of a supernova afterglow gets its name from Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” because the stellar remnant resembles a screaming person.
“Misty Mountains”
Dust and gas structures of the Pelican Nebula, observed 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 menacing creature.
“Night Observations”
A fascinating photo from the Isaac Newton telescope in the Canary Islands, with the Cygnus region of the Milky Way visible in the upper right.
“Run to Carina”
This captivating photo from Namibia features a stone sculpture of a person in mid-stride. 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”
This is Saturn, the ringed planet, with six of its moons. On the left, you can see Rhea, Enceladus, and Mimas as tiny dots. Dione is visible in the lower right, Titan in the upper right, and Tethys is about to disappear behind Saturn itself.
“Serpentine”
These are the remains of a pier on Snettisham beach in Norfolk, under a long exposure of the stars in the night sky.
“Solar Pulse”
A sunspot appears here on the surface of the Sun. Sunspots are darker regions on the surface of the Sun associated with the star’s magnetic field.
“The blue details of M45 The Pleiades”
The bright blue lights of the Pleiades, seen from Nerpio, Spain.
“The Dance of Jupiter’s Moons”
Jupiter and its moons Io and Ganymede. Io is an interesting research target for scientists, given its desolate, volcano-covered landscape.
“The Fire-Breathing Dragon”
Here is another aurora reminiscent of a mythical flying serpent. This photo is in black and white, an interesting approach to one of the most famous and vivid natural phenomena on Earth.
“The Galaxy Devourer”
This disturbing image foreshadows the end 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 using a telescope at Chile’s El Sauce Observatory, shows the incredibly flat galaxy M104, or Sombrero Galaxy, including the dust that permeates the object.
“The International Space Station’s Lunar Transit During the Day”
A composite image showing the ISS transiting the Moon’s surface.
“The Himalayan Palette”
An iridescent rainbow of the solar corona as it appears in altostratus clouds above the Himalayan Mountains.
“Total solar eclipse”
A must-see image of a total solar eclipse. This one was taken in Australia in April 2023; the image is composed of seven superimposed photos that capture different states of the eclipse.