Mount Etna erupts in Sicily, Italy on February 21, 2021 sending plumes of ash and spewing lava into air. There was a major increase in volcanic activity that led to a paroxysmal event at the Southeast crater for the fourth time in the past six days. (Photo by Wead/Alamy Live News)

Participants kiss on a platform as they take part in the annual event “No Trousers Tube Ride” in London, Sunday, January 8, 2023. The No Trousers Tube Ride returns to London, the first time the event had taken place since January 2020, due to Covid. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

A female soccer player controls a ball during a training session at the Golab Trust Sport Complex in Kabul March 10, 2014. Despite decades of conflict in Afghanistan, and several recent militant attacks, the country's capital Kabul is home to a vibrant youth scene of musicians, artists, athletes and activists. Shopping malls and cafes stand in the city, which is nonetheless beset by infrastructure problems and instability. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters)

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.

A chimpanzee relaxes in the shade at the Safari Park as the popular attraction prepares for the upcoming Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) on April 14, 2008 in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

In this photo taken Friday, December 9, 2016, young ballerinas practice under the instruction of Kenyan ballet dancer Joel Kioko, 16, in a room at a school in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

General view of a herbal store in Cairo, Egypt January 10, 2017. In an economic crisis that has led to a shortage of medicines, Egyptians are skipping trips to drug stores and instead turning to herbal remedies to treat every-day illnesses. (Photo by Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)

In this aerial view the officers' building and an auditorium stand at the former Soviet military base on January 26, 2017 in Wuensdorf, Germany. Wuensdorf, once called “The Forbidden City”, was the biggest base for the Soviet armed forces in communist East Germany from 1945 until the last Soviet troops left in the early 1990s following the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)