<p>A dazzling green aurora frames the arc of the <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/12/milky-way/croswell-text">Milky Way</a> over Jökulsárlón, the largest glacier lake in <a href="http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/iceland-guide/">Iceland</a>, on March 10. The picture is a first-prize winner in the <a href="http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/news.asp?newsID=6064">Second International Earth and Sky Photo Contest</a>'s "Beauty of the Night Sky" category.</p><p>Organized by astronomy-education projects <a href="http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/index.asp">The World at Night (TWAN)</a> and <a href="http://www.astronomerswithoutborders.org/global-astronomy-month-2011.html">Global Astronomy Month</a>, the contest honors pictures that meet one of two criteria: "either to impress people on how important and amazing the starry sky is, or to impress people on how bad the problem of <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/light-pollution/klinkenborg-text">light pollution</a> has become." In total, ten winners were announced May 9 in either the "Beauty of the Night Sky" or "Against the Lights" category.</p><p>To achieve the contest goals, organizers asked for "landscape astrophotography"—pictures of world landmarks against the night sky. This style "brings Earth and sky into one frame, and it's a bridge between the night sky and the ... environment," TWAN founder and contest judge Babak Tafreshi said in an email to National Geographic News.</p><p>"If we considered dark, starry skies a part of nature and our living world heritage, then we would try to preserve it like the other parts of nature."</p><p><em>—Victoria Jaggard</em><br class="kix-line-break"></p>