People celebrate Nowruz, considered as the harbinger of spring, awakening of nature and brotherhood, with traditional costumes and at Gobustan National Park in Baku, Azerbaijan on March 21, 2022. People from different regions of Azerbaijan attended celebration with colorful dresses and various music groups performed. (Photo by Resul Rehimov/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Star Wars fan Mike Deguzman practices with a toy lightsaber after purchasing some new toys that went on sale at midnight in advance of the film “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York, September 4, 2015. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Toure, a Gambian salt harvester, holds a basket filled with the salt collected from the crust of the bottom of the Lake Retba (Pink Lake) in Senegal on March 16, 2021. Lake Retba, divided from the Atlantic Ocean by a narrow corridor of dunes, owes its name to the pink waters caused by the Dunaliella salina algae and is known for its high salt content, up to 40% in some areas. (Photo by Marco Longari/AFP Photo)

Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Marion (L) and Nikola (R), members of the Sport Saber League, pose with their light sabers in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris, France, November 26, 2015. Three "Star Wars" fans opened the French Academy of the Sport Saber League in September 2015 due to the increase interest for light saber fighting and the upcoming movie "The Force Awakens" which will premier in Paris, December 16th, two days before its worldwide official release. (Photo by Charles Platiau/Reuters)

Fifty-year-old Palestinian Nizar al-Dabbas, a “Musaharati” who plays the traditional role of “Ramadan drummer”, awakens Muslims for the pre-dawn traditional “suhur” meal before the start of the following day's fast, during the holy month of Ramadan in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip early on April 5, 2022. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP Photo)

A man walks with a giant rake during carnival celebrations in Zubieta January 27, 2015. Bell carrying dancers known as Joaldunak from Zubieta and neighbouring Ituren visit each other's villages performing a ritual dance to ward off evil spirits and awaken the coming spring. Alongside the dancers, villagers dress in bizarre and frightening costumes to harass and scare visitors. (Photo by Vincent West/Reuters)

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)