The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is seen in the sky in Ivalo of Lapland, Finland on September 27, 2019. (Photo by Alexander Kuznetsov/Reuters)

The sun rises behind The Royal Liver Building in Liverpool, Merseyside on Tuesday, January 17, 2023. (Photo by Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)

Huge waves hit the promenade at Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, England late Monday afternoon, March 11, 2024, with some people braving a walk along the seafront. (Photo by Ian Sproat/Picture Exclusive)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

Giant pandas enjoy food around a table at Chongqing Zoo, Chongqing, China on May 21, 2023. (Photo by Rex Features/Shutterstock)

The DFDS Princess seaways heads into the River Tyne in rough seas today, Friday January 21, 2022. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)

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.

From Tibetan monks playing basket ball with ice thawing high up in the Himalayas, to the pollution that hides behind the Taj Mahal, here’s pick from 60 exceptional environmental photographs, by photographers and filmmakers from 70 countries, that will go on show at the Royal Geographical Society in London from 29 June to 21 August. The winners will be announced on 28 June. Here: Gravel Workmen of Chittagong, Bangladesh, by Faisal Azim. Gravel workmen look through a glass window at a gravel-crushing yard in Chittagong. Full of dust and sand, it is an extremely unhealthy environment for working, but still hundreds of people work here for their livelihoods. (Photo by Faisal Azim/2016 Atkins CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year)