The sun sets behind artist Luke Jerram's “Floating Earth” at Pennington Flash on November 22, 2021 in Wigan, England. The floating Earth will hover over Pennington Flash for 10 days from November 19, as part of a celebration of Wigan and Leigh's watercourses and is the first time one of Jerram's globes has been floated on an open expanse of water. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

A woman wearing a face mask as a precaution against the COVID-19 while using smartphone in a subway train in Hong Kong, Thursday, February 27, 2020. As the worst-hit areas of Asia continued to struggle with a viral epidemic, with hundreds more cases reported Thursday in South Korea and China, worries about infection and containment spread across the globe. (Photo by Kin Cheung/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.

Volunteers try to keep alive some of the hundreds of stranded pilot whales after one of the country's largest recorded mass whale strandings, in Golden Bay, at the top of New Zealand's south island, February 10, 2017. Volunteers in New Zealand managed to refloat about 100 surviving pilot whales on Saturday, February 11, 2017 and are hoping they will swim back out to sea after more than 400 of the creatures swam aground at a remote beach. (Photo by Ross Wearing/Reuters)

Festival volunteer Aisling Wilson jumps into the Jump Trump art installation created by artists Erik Kessels and Thomas Mailaender, which is on display at the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast as part of the 2019 Belfast Photo Festival on June 6, 2019. The exhibition includes the Jump Trump installation on display for the first time in the UK and Ireland. (Photo by Justin Kernoghan/PA Images via Getty Images)

People visit the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, California, to view the flowers blooming on April 6, 2023. California’s biologically diverse landscapes are home to more than 7,000 species of native plants, and the California Poppy, also known as golden poppy, a flowering plant native to the United States and Mexico became the official state flower in 1903. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP Photo)

Tattoo artists and body art fans from across the globe have descended on London for one of the biggest and most prestigious tattoo conventions. “This is like the Premier League of tattoo artists from all over the world who come here to show their work”, organiser Marcus Beriman said. Photo: Bugz Bonniie displays some of her tattoos. (Photo by Oli Scarff)