Students learn how to use an airsoft gun from Taiwanese military instructors at Kaohsiung Municipal Sanmin Senior High School in Kaohsiung on January 11, 2024. Kaohsiung City launched a national defence education program using digital technology for all its high school students. The program also promotes drug prevention in cooperation with the Taiwan defense ministry. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

A Cucumber and a Chuta Cholero hug during the traditional festival “Desentierro del Pepino” (unearthing the Cucumber) to mark the beginning of carnival on January 21, 2024 in La Paz, Bolivia. People dug up the cucumber from the cemetery and walk through the streets with two characters, the Ch'uta and the Chola. (Photo by Gaston Brito/Getty Images)

A group of friends react during “Ladies Day” at the Randox Grand National Festival held at the Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool, Britain, 12 April 2024. The Grand National Festival is held over three days, culminating in the world famous 6.9 kilometer handicapped steeplechase, running for the 176th time in 2024. (Photo by Adam Vaughan/EPA/EFE)

Young men play basketball on an improvised court wedged between a construction site and the shells of once grand colonial homes in Havana, July 20, 2015. As much as the young in Cuba welcome political opening and economic reform, such changes are unlikely to filter down to their lives anytime soon. (Photo by Meridith Kohut/The New York Times)

Several beaches along South Florida's Atlantic coast line were closed after thousands of sharks were seen migrating in the waters. The sharks were migrating from Boca Raton to Jupiter since the beginning of March, marine biologists told NBC Miami. Photo: A spinner shark swims just offshore on Midtown Beach in Palm Beach on Tuesday. (Photo by Jeffrey Langlois/Palm Beach Daily News)

Revellers celebrate "Ash Monday" by participating in a colourful "flour war", a traditional festivity marking the end of the carnival season and the start of the 40-day Lent period until the Orthodox Easter,in the port town of Galaxidi, some 215 km (134 miles) north west of Athens, March 18, 2013. The revellers "fight" by throwing coloured flour, charcoal dust and powder painting until they essentially run out of supplies. (Photo by Yannis Behrakis/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.

“The Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by the Lockheed Skunk Works. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was responsible for many of the design's innovative concepts. During reconnaissance missions the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes to allow it to outrace threats. If a surface-to-air missile launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outrun the missile”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A U.S. Air Force SR-71A, also known as the “Blackbird”, is put through it's paces during a test flight over Beale Air Force Base in California. The aircraft is a strategic reconnaissance plane by Lockheed and is the world's fastest and highest flying operational aircraft. (Photo by Getty Images)