[imagesource: Nicolas Rolland and Martin Pugh]

Is the universe watching us or are we watching the universe?

Either way, it feels like that smiley in space is trying to tell us something.

These are just some of the things that might cross your mind after seeing the outstanding photographs from this year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

The competition has been running for 13 years out of The Royal Observatory Greenwich, which was founded back in 1675 and has been at the centre of several historic milestones in the measurement of time and space, per New Atlas.

There were 4 500 entries this year, featuring technically masterful photos of distant galaxies. That smiley was awarded “highly commended” after taking 27,5 hours of total exposure to get right.

This year’s best photograph was of a solar eclipse taken in Tibet in mid-2020 by Shuchang Dong.

It is awe-inspiring for being deceptively simple:

“This image demonstrates both the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event,” says Emily Darbek-Maunder, one of this year’s judges.

Behold, “The Golden Ring”:

Chinese photographer Zhong Wu’s 360-degree mosaic of the Milky Way is an image that blows minds.

It took Wu two years to piece together the image from 1 000 separate shots taken in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres.

Judge Imad Ahmed said it was one of the most breathtaking entries of this year:

In the Aurora category, Dmitrii Rybalka’s haunting shot from a moving ship approaching the Kara Strait in Russia took first place.

Judge Sue Prichard said the image reminded them of an opening scene from a sci-fi movie:

The sun was also a hot contender, featured in two vastly different winning shots by separate photographers.

There’s this by Vincent Bouchama, whose image of the sun “sharing its crown with a comet” was a runner-up:

That’s quite different to Alan Friedman’s take, which shows a curtain of hydrogen bellowing from the surface of the sun.

It received the status of highly commended:

The winner for the Planets, Comets, Asteroids category was Frank Kuszaj for his shot of a colourful Quadrantids meteor taken in Missouri, America:

No idea what is going on there, but I can’t stop staring.

Then there’s this dreamy shot of a skyscape by Jin Yang, titled ‘Van Gogh’s Sketchpad’ and taken in Yunnan Province, China.

It received highly commended status:

Another highlight came via the Stars and Nebulae category with Min Xie’s ‘The Colour Splash Of Cygnus Loop”:

For the other spectacular shots of space, head here.

And if you’re going up, you might as well go down and peruse the winning shots of the Ocean Photography Awards.

[source:newatlas]