Stunning photograph beautifully showcases the beauty of the Milky Way

2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year/Tom Ray

If you're in the right place at the right time and look up at the sky, you might see something awe-inspiring.

This is a sentiment evoked by some of this year's winning works. Milky Way Photographer of the Year Contest: Each year, the top 25 most captivating photos of the galaxy taken from breathtaking locations around the world are selected for publication by Dan Zafra, editor of the travel photography blog Capture the Atlas.

Tom Ray's entry (main image) shows the Milky Way emerging from Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest peak, on a winter's night. “In unusual alpine weather conditions, I embarked on a nightly journey up a glacial valley,” Ray says in an announcement on Zafra's site. “When I reached the lake, the view that unfolded made me feel as if I had landed on another planet.”

Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2024/Andrea Cursi

In another high-altitude attempt, Andrea Curzi photographed the Milky Way “arch” (pictured above) over the Italian mountain pass Passo Giau. The red fuzzy patch in the sky is a glowing cloud of hydrogen called an emission nebula, which appears red because it emits light only at certain wavelengths. This light is produced by the ionization of atoms in the gas caused by newly forming stars.

The Milky Way photographed in the Eastern Sierra region of California

2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year/Brant Ryder

Hoodoo Wonderland in the Starry Sky

2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year/Stephanie T

Meanwhile, the photo above shows a stunning American landscape. The first of two photos by Brandt Ryder was taken in the Eastern Sierra region of California, where the Milky Way frames a sea of ​​purple lupine. Stephanie Tee wrote of this photo, taken in Utah: Hoodoo Wonderland in the Starry Sky – A tribute to the toadstool-like hoodoo rocks that further enhance the aura of the starry background.