Of course, the James-Webb (JW) telescope is in a class by itself. But at the other end of the spectrum, competitions for “microscopy” – or microscope-assisted photographs – have continued to remind us that there is also a universe… for example, in a stalk embryo geckoand winning competition works Nikon Small World 2022.
It is hard to believe that the climate crisis can provide such great images. However, this photograph of Storm Eunice hitting the harbor of Newhaven, England on February 17, 2002 won its author, Christopher Eason, first prize in the Royal Meteorological Society Photography Competition. The storm was accompanied by winds nearing 200 kilometers per hour.
But there are also more disturbing climate images, reminiscent of the looming crisis, that are remembered better than the best popular texts. The US Nature Conservancy awarded first prize in the “Climate” category. of its annual competition To this picture of an American worker busy removing excess vegetation in one of the Great Lakes, excess resulting from rising temperatures and sewage.
More microscopy: A parasitic fungus grows on the body of a fly in Peru in this competition-winning image BMC Ecology and Evolution (By BioMed Central publisher).
And of course there are these “Pillars of Creation,” a region of space where new stars are being born. It lies 6,500 light-years away and was seen in October via New JW telescope eyes. Its predecessor, Hubble, had already imaged this cosmic structure in 1995. The image has even been ingrained in popular culture, being used in movies and TV series: but no one seemed to have imagined that so many details could be hidden within these clouds of gas and dust.
