Rare photograph of comet tail breaking off wins prestigious award
September 17, 2022 By Awanish Kumar
(Image Credit Google)
The Royal Observatory Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition has awarded the grand prize to an ethereal photograph of Comet Leonard navigating against the solar wind.
On Christmas Day 2021, Namibian photographer Gerald Rhemann captured the comet and its sweeping tail. The comet's gas may be seen being grabbed and carried away by solar wind in Rhemann's photograph.
"This award is one of the highlights of my astrophotography work," Rhemannr said in a statement. "All the effort that went into making this image a success was worth it."
Other category winners include the sparkling image of the Milky Way galaxy's nearest massive spiral galaxy, "Andromeda Galaxy: The Neighbor," taken by Chinese teenagers Yang Hanwen and Zhou Zezhen at the age of 14. The Young Photographer category was won by their photo.
With a picture of a bright green aurora rising over an ice-covered Icelandic lake, Slovakian photographer Filip Hrebenda won the top honor in the category for Aurorae. With a stunning photograph of shadows strewn across the surface of the moon's Plato crater, Martin Lewis of the UK won the Moon category.
The winning image was one of a number of remarkable and unusual photos entered in the contest. "There are some things you won't have seen before, and even some things that won't be seen again," Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said in the statement.
By Awanish Kumar
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