Professional conceptual category winner. Greetings from Mars, by Julien Mauve, France. Mauve says: “I have always wondered what it would be like to discover a totally different world ... and to photograph it for the first time as if I was Ansel Adams. So I came up with this project, which is about space exploration and discovery. But it’s also about our behavior in front of landscapes and how we create pictures that will share our personal story with the world”. (Photo by Julien Mauve)

People take photos as an Ariane 5 space rocket with a payload of four Galileo satellites lifts off from ESA's European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on November 17, 2016. Ariane 5 successfully launched on November 17 four satellites which will be part of the Galileo global satellite navigation system. (Photo by Jody Amiet/AFP Photo)

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)

Participants compete to do nothing during the Space-out competition at World Expo 2025 on September 27, 2025 in Osaka, Japan. For 90 minutes, participants sat in silence, trying to remain in a dazed state without distraction. The winner was determined not by activity but by calmness maintaining the most stable heart rate amid the lively crowds of the Osaka Expo site. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

The launch of a rocket into space is projected on Dubai's Burj Khalifa on February 9, 2021 as the UAE's “Al-Amal” – Arabic for “Hope” – probe's to Mars carries out a tricky manoeuvre to enter the Red Planet's orbit. A tense half-hour today will determine the fate of “Hope”. If successful, the probe which is designed to reveal the secrets of Martian weather, will become the first of three spacecraft to arrive at the Red Planet this month. (Photo by Giuseppe Cacace/AFP Photo)

Sheriffs' deputies look at wreckage from the crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo near Cantil, California November 2, 2014. A suborbital passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic company crashed during a test flight on Friday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, killing one crew member and seriously injuring the other, officials said. (Photo by David McNew/Reuters)

“The Sunsetter”. An EF-4 tornado rips through the open space of farmland near Rozel, Kansas. This tornado moves slowly but powerful towards the setting sun an gets its beautiful color right before sunset. Storm Chasers are spotting on the left side. Photo location: Rozel, Kansas. (Photo and caption by Dennis Oswald/National Geographic Photo Contest)

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