These are the dunes of the Namib Desert, taken by Korea's Kompstat-2 satellite. The blue and white area is the dried riverbed of the Tsauchab river. (Photo by The European Space Agency)

France's Alice Finot celebrates next to the mascot winning silver in the Women's 3000m final at the 2021 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Torun on March 5, 2021. (Photo by Aleksandra Szmigiel/Reuters)

A young man wears a mask on the right side of his head as he stands on a bridge with the European Central Bank at left in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, October 29, 2020. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Stiliana Nikolova of Bulgaria performs her ball exercise in the final of the individual competition of the 40th European Rhytmic Gymanstics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, 25 May 2024. (Photo by Tibor Illyes/EPA)

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)

French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy waits for the spouses of the Heads of Delegation participating in the G8 Summit on May 26, 2011 in Deauville, France. (Photo by Franck Prevel/Getty Images)

French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who is pregnant, welcomes the spouses of heads of state at at Le Ciro's Resaturant on the second day of the G8 Summit on May 27, 2011 in Deauville, France. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The summit of one of Europe's tallest mountains glows like the flame of a candle as the sun rises on a clear morning. The Matterhorn, famous for appearing on bars of Toblerone chocolate bars, reflects the vivid orange light at 5.37am. (Photo by Margarethe Jaeger/Solent News & Photo Agency)