Astronaut Donald R. Pettit would often rig an array of as many as six cameras in the cupola windows and set them all to fire continuously for events such as sunsets, which only last around seven seconds on the ISS. (Photo by Donald R. Pettit)

A pine marten – one of a few wild mammals doing well in Britain (although they number just 3,700). A fifth of the country’s wild mammals are at high risk of extinction, research shows. (Photo by Maurice Flynn/The Mammal Society)

People and Nature category winner: Why did the sloth cross the road? by Andrew Whitworth (Osa Conservation and University of Glasgow), taken in Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. “I was driving out from the Osa Peninsula, located on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica on a dark, stormy day. This female three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) had luckily just about made it across the road, and the drivers of the Toyota on this occasion had spotted her in good time”. (Photo by Andrew Whitworth/2019 British Ecological Society Photography Competition)

The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft carrying the crew formed of Kathleen Rubins of NASA, Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on October 14, 2020. (Photo by Russian space agency Roscosmos/Handout via Reuters)

A view from the opening night of the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) Camping World Team Series in New York City, New York, United States on August 9, 2024. New York Mavericks earned an upset win against Kansas City Outlaws during their hometown debut at the Barclays Center. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Ambra Sabatini (ITA) and Monica Graziana Contrafatto (ITA) fall at the finish line ahead of Elena Kratter (SUI) and Noelle Lambert (USA) in the Para Athletics Women’s 100m -T63 Final during the Paris 2024 Paralympic Summer Games at Stade de France, on September 7, 2024. (Photo by Adrian Dennis/OIS via Imagn Images)

Soap Bubble Structures by Kym Cox. Bubbles optimise space and minimise their surface area for a given volume of air. This phenomenon makes them a useful tool in many areas of research, in particular, materials science and “packing” – how things fit together. Bubble walls drain under gravity, thin at the top, thick at the bottom, which interferes with travelling lightwaves to create bands of colour. Black spots show the wall is too thin for interference colours, indicating the bubble is about to burst. (Photo by Kym Cox/2019 Science Photographer of the Year/RPS)