Female sea lion “Sarasa” holds a hose with her mouse to help a trainer clean her room at the Shinagawa Aqua Stadium aquarium in Tokyo on December 30, 2014. The aquarium is carrying out year-end general cleaning of their facilities. (Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP Photo)

A picture taken on August 25, 2021 shows a view of the Aletsch Glacier. After hiking for hours across the mountain and a vast expanse of white, Swiss glaciologist Matthias Huss crouches down near the middle of the massive glacier and checks the measurements. Analysis of the data gathered from Aletsch, the largest glacier in the Alps, paints a dire picture of the toll that climate change is taking on the behemoth. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP Photo)

Winner – Animal Portraits: The pose by Mogens Trolle, Denmark. A young male proboscis monkey cocks his head slightly and closes his eyes. Unexpected pale blue eyelids now complement his immaculately groomed auburn hair. He poses for a few seconds as if in meditation. He is a wild visitor to the feeding station at Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary in Sabah, Borneo – “the most laid-back character”, says Trolle, “quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen on another monkey” – connects us, he hopes, with a fellow primate. (Photo by Mogens Trolle/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020)

Honey bees and ground bumblebees fly with thick purple pollen pouches to the flower of a corn poppy, also called poppy or corn rose, to obtain nectar in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 7, 2022. Bumblebees, which like bees belong to the stinging bee family, form so-called summer colonies that exist for only a few months. (Photo by Wolfgang Kumm/dpa via AP Photo)

A massive, 8 metre tall sculpture of Marilyn Monroe, frozen with her dress blowing up, was on display at a shopping mall in downtown Dalian city, northeast China's Liaoning province, on Tuesday, November 14, 2017. The sculpture is a replica of Seward Johnson's Forever Marilyn in Chicago. (Photo by Imagine China/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A dog wearing face mask is seen on a street as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, in Shanghai, China on March 2, 2020. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Indian commuters travel in a local train in Kolkata, India, Tuesday, February 26, 2013. Indian Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal is presenting the country's rail budget for next fiscal year in the parliament Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Indian railway network is one of the world's largest, with some 14 million passengers daily and some 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) of railway track cut through some of the most densely populated cities. (Photo by Bikas Das/AP Photo)

The Royal Observatory just announced its Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2013 winners. Australian photographer Mark Gee was chosen among a thousand amateur and professional photographers around the globe to win the top title. His work is part of an exhibition of the winning photographers, which opened on Sept. 19 at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The Royal Observatory shared with us the winners and notable mentions of the competition. Their descriptions of the prizewinners can be found below the images.