Fancy visiting an alien world? Well, Mars, one of our closest celestial neighbours, is roughly a staggering 225 million kilometres away from Earth – a journey that would take you over 1,000 years to walk.
But don’t go reaching for your space boots just yet: there’s plenty on planet Earth that looks truly Martian. At least, that’s what we can tell from the winner of this year’s Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition. While it looks like a picture of extra-terrestrial plants, it actually shows a cluster of smile moulds growing in a leafy garden in the United Kingdom (see image below).
But it’s not the only staggering photo in this collection, which documents strange scientific phenomena. Scroll down below to see a real-life crystal forest, a temporal crack, and a jellyfish elevator.
Ecology category runner-up – Post-war chamois
An Alpine chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) licks the wall of a WWII bunker, high in the mountains of Val Varaita, in the western Alps. Over the last centuries, the Alps have been theatre of many conflicts since they represent natural and political borders among different countries. Photo by Filippo Carugati
Microimaging category runner-up – Beacon of crystals in a wild forest
The Image shows micro crystals of two chemical combinations Beta Alanine and L Glutamine showing the evolution of crystal patterns in process of crystallisation. Photo by Shyam Ulhas
Astronomy category winner – The western veil nebula
About 10,000-20,000 years ago, a star much more massive than our Sun exploded into a supernova. The result was the Veil Nebula, a magnificent supernova remnant found in the Cygnus constellation. Despite being over 2000 lightyears away, the angular size of the nebula in our sky is several times larger than the Moon. Photo by Imran Sultan
Earth science category runner-up – A crack in time
A surveyor is dwarfed by the huge cliffs of the Corinth Canal, Greece. The image shows a typical outcrop, of the canal, which sits in the centre of the neotectonic depression and cuts through numerous normal faults. Photo by Dr Chia-Hsin (Wendy) Tsai
Ecology category winner – Star of the night
A school of small fish run wild above a colourful coral reef and a sea star, which has just come out of its den to forage. Photo by Dr Tom Shlesinger
Astronomy category runner-up – Flower Moon on a cloudy night
The May full Moon is known as the Flower Moon, a name originating from the Algonquin people that marks the blooming of flowers during spring. This year's Flower Moon fell on a cloudy night, but the photographer was able to capture this image through the clouds above Chicago, USA. Photo by Imran Sultan
Behaviour category runner-up – Ssstandoff
A pair of male prairie rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis) tussle for dominance, intertwining their necks. Photographed in southern Alberta, Canada. Photo by Dr Gregory Funston
Behaviour category winner – Nightly elevator
Every night, sea creatures rise up to the ocean’s surface in order to feed while avoiding daytime predators. Many small organisms like this juvenile fish hitch a ride on larger animals not only to conserve energy but also to gain protection. This jellyfish will sting anything that gets too close, thus protecting the fish. Photo by Dr Tom Shlesinger
Earth science category runner-up – Burning through the frozen south
Fiery sunsets like this one can last for hours in the frozen landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula. Here, the dying rays of the Sun pick out gaps between ice floes, creating a landscape that seems more like lava than ice. Photo by Professor Michael Meredith
Overall winner – Martian landscape
This photo shows a specimen of Lamproderma scintillans, an exceptionally fascinating microorganism firmly growing on an autumnal leaf in Somerset, UK. The slime mould exhibits a striking array of hues, ranging from earthy browns, fiery reds, and lustrous bronzes to occasionally a mesmerising steel-blue iridescence, mirroring the vibrant palette of the surrounding deciduous landscape. Photo by Irina Petrova Adamatzky
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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