A woman reacts while walking among the ruins of damaged buildings following heavy fighting between government troops and Kurdish fighters, on March 2, 2016 in the southeastern Turkey Kurdish town of Cizre, near the border with Syria and Iraq. Thousands in Turkey's Kurdish-majority town of Cizre started returning to their homes today after authorities partially lifted a curfew in place since December for a controversial military operation to root out separatist rebels. (Photo by Yasin Akgül/AFP Photo)

Lindsey Vonn of USA wins the bronze medal during the FIS World Ski Championships Women's Downhill on February 10, 2019 in Are Sweden. (Photo by Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)

A tourist watches as the moon passing in front of the sun as it approaches a full solar eclipse in the northern Australian city of Cairns November 14, 2012. (Photo by Tim Wimborne/Reuters)

A cyclist rides past a tumulus tomb in Gyeongju, South Korea on November 1, 2025. (Photo by Anthony Wallace/AFP Photo)

Blossoms and dust are blown by the wind as Jasmin Ricks, left, and her sister, Jessica Ricks, center, take in the cherry blossoms near the Tidal Basin in Washington on April 12, 2018. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

In this April 12, 2015 photo, Sayed Ahmed Abdoh poles his boat to check his fish traps in the Nile River, near Abu al-Nasr village, about 770 kilometers (480 miles) south of Cairo, Egypt. Abdoh caught some 20 fish this day and gave them to his friend, Salama Osman, a migrant worker in a Cairo apartment building, to celebrate his biannual return to their village. (Photo by Hiro Komae/AP Photo)

A grey-bellied Night Monkey (Aotus Lemurinus) plays with a teddy bear at the veterinary clinic of the Cali Zoo in Cali, Colombia on January 27, 2020. They monkey is being raised by personnel of the Cali Zoo after a worker found it near the complex. Apparently it fall from a tree with his father who had health problems. (Photo by Luis Robayo/AFP Photo)

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)