31 jaw-dropping space photos that will change how you see the Universe
31 jaw-dropping space photos that will change how you see the Universe
The strange, stunning and sometimes surreal beauty of our cosmos
A time-lapse observation of the solar chromosphere (the thin, reddish layer of the Sun’s atmosphere above the visible surface), captures the moment a plane passes across the path of the image. Photo by Zhang Yanguang/APOTY25
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) has fascinated stargazers for millennia – but now we can see it as never before. From the crystal-clear skies above the AstroCamp Observatory in Nerpio, Spain, three photographers have revealed its luminous core and star-studded spirals in extraordinary detail.
That breathtaking image (see below) has just earned Weitang Liang, Qi Yang and Chuhong Yu the title of Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2025.
Other winning and shortlisted images feature a jaw-dropping star-forming region, the tangled beauty of a spaghetti nebula, and a perfectly timed shot of a plane crossing the Sun (see main image).
The ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year award was won by Daniele Borsari for his image Orion, the Horsehead and the Flame in H-Alpha.
The Astronomy Photographer of the Yearcompetition is run by Royal Observatory Greenwich, An exhibition of the winning images is currently running at the National Maritime Museum, London, UK.
Stars & Nebulae category – Runner-up
This image showcases the iconic NGC 6960, also known as the Veil Nebula. Photo by Zixiong Jin/APOTY25
Our Moon category – Winner
This image captures the phenomenon of atmospheric refraction, where moonlight passes through dense layers of Earth’s atmosphere near the horizon, bending in a manner similar to light rays through a prism. Photo by Marcella Giulia Pace/APOTY25
Galaxies category – Highly commended
The image shows M33, the Triangulum Galaxy from a new perspective. Due to tidal interaction with M31, there is very prominent star-forming activity in M33, which results in a spectacular structure of emission nebulae. Photo by Bence Tóth/Péter Feltóti/Bertalan Kecskés/APOTY25
Our Moon category – Runner-up
This image shows the tail-end of August’s lunar occultation of Saturn. Although rare for any one location on Earth, 2024 saw a total of ten occultations occur across the globe. The event pictured here occurred near Saturn’s opposition and so coincided with the near-Full Moon. Photo by Tom Williams/APOTY25
Aurorae category – Winner
The image was taken during the G5 storm, the most extreme level of geomagnetic storm, in May 2024. The reds were a level of intensity the photographer had never experienced. Photographed at Tumbledown Bay, Little River, Banks Peninsula Community, New Zealand. Photo by Kavan Chay/APOTY25
ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year – Highly commended
This image captures the conjunction of the Moon and Saturn, when they were exceptionally close in the night sky. It was an ideal night for astrophotography, with clear skies providing perfect visibility. The image is a seven-panel mosaic, carefully stitched together to showcase the Moon’s surface in stunning detail and Saturn in its full glory against the black backdrop of space. Photo by Shamiqh Gajdhar/APOTY25
This full-spectrum image of the Spaghetti Nebula unveils the faint and elusive nature of this supernova remnant (SNR), hidden behind a vast cloud of dust that obstructs its emission light. Photo by Shaoyu Zhang/APOTY25
Our Sun category – Winner
The chromosphere is the most picturesque part of the Sun. Composed of hydrogen and helium plasma, it is manipulated by the intense and tangled magnetic fields of the Sun. Photo by James Sinclair/APOTY25
This image shows Mars when it became retrograde (the apparent backward motion of a planet) in late May 2024, near M44, the Beehive Cluster. Here we see the 'Red Planet' imaged every five days, starting on 16 November 2024 (bottom right) and ending on 26 December 2024 (top right), allowing us to glimpse its movement towards the east, until it reverses on 6 December 2024 and starts moving west. Photo by Andre Vilhena/APOTY25
Planets, comets & asteroids category – Winner
Comet 12P/Pons−Brooks reacted visibly to the intensified solar winds associated with the current solar maximum, creating a spectacle of tail dynamics and colourful hues expelled by its nuclear coma, the bright cloud of gas around the comet’s centre. Photo by Dan Bartlett/APOTY25
Skyscapes category – Runner-up
This photo captures that motion in the star trails, traced into the night sky over a 20-minute period. It is interesting to note that the trails on the right appear taller, showing greater vertical movement, due to distortion. This reduces to near zero vertical movement on the left. This is due to Earth’s rotation around the south celestial pole, positioned towards the left of the photo. Some zodiacal light also makes an appearance in this pre-dawn long exposure. Alex van Harmelen/APOTY25
People & space category – Highly commended
A time-lapse observation of the solar chromosphere (the thin, reddish layer of the Sun’s atmosphere above the visible surface), captures the moment a plane passes across the path of the image. Photo by Zhang Yanguang/APOTY25
ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year – Winner
On the lower left lies the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33. This dense dark cloud of gases hides the light coming from the emission nebula IC 434 and creates the apparent shape of a horse’s head. A little to the left we find the Flame Nebula, NGC 2024. And finally, in the upper-right of the image, is M42, famously known as the Orion Nebula. This nebula is a huge cloud of dust and gas where a lot of new stars are born. Photo by Daniele Borsari/APOTY
Skyscapes category – Winner
This photograph captures the twin glacial rivers with the Milky Way core off to the left of the image, as well as the famous Southern Cross and other pointers high in the centre sky. Photographed at Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, Mackenzie District, New Zealand. Photo by Tom Rae/APOTY25
ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year – Highly commended
This 22-megapixel panorama shows the different stages of the full solar eclipse, with a high dynamic range image of totality in the middle. This reveals both the bright corona and finer details otherwise lost in standard exposures. The final image uses approximately 200 images with varying exposure times to create a HDR totality, before combining everything together. Photographed at Coaticook, Quebec, Canada, 8 April 2024. Photo by Louis Egan/APOTY25
Stars & Nebulae category – Winner
M13, or the Great Hercules Cluster, is one of the most prominent and well-studied globular clusters in the northern sky. Discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714, it is located in the constellation Hercules and lies about 22,200 light years from Earth. Photo by Julian Zoller/Jan Beckmann/Lukas Eisert/Wolfgang Hummel/APOTY25
Our Moon category – Highly commended
This Moon close-up shows, among other things, the main crater Aristarchus with its nine secondary craters. It has a diameter of 40 km (25 miles) and is located in a region visible on the front side of the lunar surface. Photo by Raul Cantemir/APOTY25
People & space category – Winner
This image shows the International Space Station making a close pass of our Moon. The event was predicted to be a transit but ended up being a close flyby. However, the result is still dramatic, with the station’s solar arrays backlit by the rising Sun. Notably, the white radiators can also be seen and are illuminated by earthshine rather than direct sunlight. Photo by Tom Williams/APOTY25
Skyscapes category – Highly commended
The full Moon rising above the rugged peaks of the Dolomites, Italy. With no clouds in sight and in flawless conditions, the golden light of sunset bathes the mountains, creating harmony between Earth and sky. Photo by Fabian Dalpiaz/APOTY25
Galaxies category – Runner-up
The Deer Lick region, home to NGC 7331 and the famous Stephan’s Quintet, is a stunning display of galactic interaction. Yet beyond its well-known structures lies something even more elusive: a vast H-alpha background, rarely captured in amateur astrophotography. Over six months, 12 photographers and a dedicated processing team worked together, integrating nearly 600 hours of exposure to reveal these faint details. Photo by Tim Schaeffer/Adrien Keijzer/Steeve Body/Akash Jain/Mike Hamende/Ryan Wierckx/John Dziuba/Paul Kent /Bogdan Borz/Antoine Grelin/Dalia Grelin/Mark Petersen/Jens Unger/APOTY25
Our Sun category – Runner-up
This image sequence documents the eruption of a massive solar prominence, originating as a small protrusion from the Sun’s surface that subsequently expanded into an enormous plasma structure in space before eventually dissipating into the void. Using 11 sequentially captured images taken approximately 12 minutes apart, the photographer documented this entire celestial event – as if the Sun had let out a cosmic yawn, stretching and releasing its luminous plasma energies back into the stellar expanse. Photo by Zhang Yanguang/APOTY25
This image shows an intense aurora, forming an immense arc that spanned more than 180º. A gigantic and perfect green neon sign illuminated the entire sky. Photographed in the skies above Stokksnes, Sveitarfélagið Hornafjörður, Iceland. Photo by Luis Vilarino/APOTY25
ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year – Runner-up
C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan−ATLAS), known as the Great Comet of 2024, was a comet from the Oort Cloud – a giant spherical shell surrounding our Solar System made of icy, comet-like objects –discovered on 9 January 2023. It was visible around the world through September and October of 2024. Tsuchinshan−ATLAS has a large orbital period of 83 million years and has likely now been ejected from the Solar System, meaning it will never return. Photo by Holden Aimar/APOTY25
ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year – Highly commended
This image shows various objects, from dark nebulae to reflection nebulae and even some distant galaxies. All the nebulae in the foreground are part of the Cepheus molecular cloud complex, a network of molecular clouds (650 to 1,500 light years from Earth) where new stars are born. Some areas are lit up by the newborn stars themselves, while others are so dense that they block the optical spectrum of light coming from behind them. The largest objects in the image are the Shark Nebula (LDN 1235) and the Rotten Fish Nebula (LDN 1251). Photo by Daniele Borsari/APOTY25
Annie Maunder Open category
The image uses data of gravitational lensing from the James Webb Space Telescope and combines it with a photograph that the photographer took of the inside of a meteorite. Inside some meteorites, patterns are formed through the extremely slow cooling of metal alloys over millions of years. This particular pattern has an incredible geometric design, looking almost like the edges of boxes or buildings in a city. Photo by Leonardo Di Maggio/APOTY
Our Sun category – Highly commended
On 7 November 2024, the Sun experienced a massive solar prominence eruption, with a length exceeding 500,000 km (311,000 miles). The eruption lasted approximately one hour from its initial outburst to its conclusion. The eruption phase of the prominence is composed of more than 20 stacked data sets highlighting the entire process of this spectacular event. Photo by PengFei Chou/APOTY25
The Sir Patrick Moore Prize for Best Newcomer
This photograph captures a serendipitous moment when a brilliant fireball from the Perseid meteor shower appears to graze M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Photo by Yurui Gong/ Xizhen Ruan/APOTY25
People & space category – Runner-up
In the northern hemisphere, stars appear to rotate around Polaris, which lies near the north celestial pole. This motion, about 15 degrees per hour from east to west, is caused by Earth’s rotation. The giant Ferris wheel at Mirageland in Uozu only operates at night a few times a year, it stands at 66 m high and with a diameter of 62.5 m. It takes about 15 minutes for the wheel to make a complete circle. Photo by Takanobu Kurosaki/APOTY25
Planets, comets & asteroids category – Runner-up
This image shows Jupiter and two of the four largest moons discovered by Galileo, Europa and Callisto. Notably, the planet’s recent storm outbreak is prominent as a white streak near the centre of the disc and is neatly mirrored by the Great Red Spot in the southern hemisphere. Photo by Tom Williams/APOTY25
Aurorae category – Highly commended
This photograph captures the rare occurrence of Northern Lights in California. Vibrant ribbons of magenta and green light up the sky, reflecting in the still waters among the rock formations. Photographed at Mono Lake, Mono County, USA. Photo by Daniel Zafra/APOTY25
Overall winner & galaxies winner
This image showcases the core of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) in exceptional detail, captured using a long focal-length telescope. Taking advantage of the excellent seeing conditions at Nerpio, the photographers focused on revealing the intricate structure of the galaxy’s central region and its surrounding stellar population. Photo by Weitang Liang, Qi Yang/Chuhong Yu/APOTY25
James Cutmore is the picture editor of BBC Science Focus Magazine. He has worked on the magazine and website for over a decade, telling compelling science stories through the use of striking imagery. He holds a degree in Fine Art, and has been nominated for the British Society of Magazine Editors Talent Awards, being highly commended in 2020. His main areas of interest include photography that highlights positive technology and the natural world. For many years he was a judge for the Wellcome Trust's image competition, as well as judging for the Royal Photographic Society.
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