Aurora Australis from Beerbarrel Beach, by James Stone. Runner Up: Aurorae. (Photo by James Stone/Astronomy Photographer of the Year)

An idol of Buddha is kept in a courtyard as an artist gives it a finishing touch ahead of the Samyak festival in Lalitpur, Nepal, March 11, 2016. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Participants perform a dragon dance as they march during a lantern parade marking the start of a month- long “Lotus Lantern Festival” to celebrate the upcoming Buddha' s birthday, in Seoul on April 29, 2017 Buddha' s birthday falls on May 3. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

Pigeons fly out from the mouth of a giant Buddha statue at Wat Nam Daeng Buddhist temple in Chachoengsao province, east of the Thai capital Bangkok, on October 11, 2020. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

Ada Wood, 10, perches on one of Castlerigg’s 38 stones during the summer solstice at Castlerigg stone circle in Cumbria, Britain, on June 21, 2016. (Photo by Christopher Thomond/The Guardian)

Devotees pour water on a revered Bodhi tree at Shwedagon Pagoda to mark Buddha's Birthday, which falls on the Full Moon Day of Kasone, in Yangon on May 11, 2025. (Photo by Sai Aung Main/AFP Photo)

A 69-meter-tall giant Buddha statue stands at the Wat Paknam Phasi Charoen temple on the outskirts of Bangkok on October 12, 2021. (Photo by Jack Taylor/AFP Photo)

Naked Sushi event where people eat sushi from the bodies of nearly naked models at Buddha Bar, Knightsbridge in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)