That night, the volcano was incredibly active. Above, the Milky Way stretched diagonally across the sky. As the volcano erupted, the ash plume rose vertically, forming an acute angle of about 45 degrees with the galaxy’s diagonal path, creating a stunning visual contrast between Earth’s fury and the cosmos’ serenity.
The night was full of colour, with comet C/2024 G3 Atlas and a pink aurora in the early hours, followed by the Milky Way rising amid intense green airglow.
The Yushan alpine rhododendrons are finally in bloom once again on Taiwan’s 3,000-metre-high Hehuan mountain. A solar flare from active region AR3664 reached Earth that evening, intensifying the airglow and adding an otherworldly touch to the sky. Together, these rare natural events created a breathtaking scene – vivid blooms glowing softly beneath a star-filled sky.
A panorama of the winter Milky Way with reddish nebulae, stretching above Dobratsch. The sky was magnificent, with Jupiter and Mars shining brightly. In the foreground is a cabin.
Double Milky Way Arch Over Matterhorn by Angel Fux
This image captures the rare double arch Milky Way, where both the winter Milky Way (with Orion rising) and the summer Milky Way (with the galactic centre) appear in the same night – a seamless transition between seasons. Taken at 3,200 metres. This is a time blend, preserving the real positions of both arches by combining frames taken hours apart, with the foreground captured at dawn for the best detail.
The Perseid meteor shower occurs every August. Each meteor is painstakingly aligned to its true location in the night sky. The final depiction shows all the meteors captured, combined into one frame – as if the Earth hadn’t been rotating and all the meteors had fallen at once.
A panoramic shot of the Milky Way in a remote area of the Atacama cactus valley, known for its large concentration of cactus plants. The panorama was taken just as the galactic centre began to rise, with the spectacular Gum Nebula visible on the right.
The annual lupine bloom in New Zealand is spectacular, with fields of colourful flowers stretching across the Mackenzie Basin. Above the flowers, you can see the band of the outer Milky Way, alongside the constellations Orion, Gemini, and the Pleiades. Joining them are the bright planets Jupiter and Mars, with a strong display of green airglow visible along the horizon.
"I float in the cupola, looking out the seven windows composing this faceted transparent jewel. While my mind is submerged in contemplation, my eyes gorge on the dim reflections from a night-time Earth. There are more than 8 billion people who call this planet home. There are seven of us who can say the same for the space station. What a privilege it is to be here."
