Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A girl gets her hands decorated with traditional henna patterns at a roadside stall ahead of Eid-al Fitr to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Karachi, Pakistan, July 17, 2015. (Photo by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)

Revellers dance at a rave party in central Kyiv, Ukraine on August 27, 2022. (Photo by Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters)

A girl with white powder on her face celebrates the Songkran holiday which marks the Thai New Year in Bangkok, Thailand, on April 14, 2024. (Photo by Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters)

A crustacean walks on a road after flooding went back in Schuld, Germany, Friday, July 16, 2021. Two days before the Ahr river went over the banks after strong rain falls causing severals deaths and hundreds of people missing. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

American actress Rachel Zegler and Panamanian actress Ilda Mason arrive at the 2021 American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California, U.S., November 21, 2021. (Photo by Aude Guerrucci/Reuters)

A man shakes a wooden disk to keep it on fire during the Schieweschlawe festival in Offwiller, eastern France, Sunday, February 26, 2023. The Schieweschlawe festival is a celtic tradition to drive away evil spirit and celebrates equinox. (Photo by Jean-Francois Badias/AP Photo)

A man in a mock space suit experiences walking in space at “Mars Base 1 Camp” on May 15, 2023 in Jinchang, Gansu Province of China. The simulated Mars base allows visitors to immerse themselves in the Mars experience. (Photo by Li Yalong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)