These award-winning photos will make you fall in love with the night sky all over again

Lyubov Trifonova

"The sky above us is an essential part of our nature," Babak Tafreshi said in a statement announcing the winners of this year's International Earth and Sky Photo Contest.

Tafreshi established the program The World at Night (TWAN), which co-founded this annual photo contest in 2008. The goal of the contest is to raise awareness about light pollution, which drowns our view of planets, stars, and galaxies in the night sky - a sight that is growing more rare each year as cities swell bigger and brighter.

"Perhaps from this perspective we can better preserve the natural night sky and reconnect it with our modern life," Tafreshi said about the contest.

Here are the 10 award-winning photos for this year, selected from an initial pool of over 1,000. You can learn more about the contest on the TWAN website.