Nature photo competition: Spectacular images of the Northern Lights and whales

London. Cleaning in minus 50 degrees Celsius, the smell of whale breath, and frogs glowing under black light: The work of researchers offers unusual details. The journal "Nature," in which scientists usually present their findings, awards prizes once a year for special images that depict the researchers themselves—often alongside their research subjects.

This time, the Nature jury selected six winners from around 200 submitted photos in the "Scientist At Work" photo competition. The overall winning image shows biologist Audun Rikardsen, who is fitting whales with transmitters in a Norwegian fjord to collect data on their behavior. "You could smell their breath," said Emma Vogel of the University of Tromsø about her photo. "And you could hear them before you could see them, which is always incredible."

If you look closely, you can even see an orca surfacing to the right behind Rikardsen – a spectacular detail that, according to “Nature,” even the judges initially missed.

Another photo shows Kate Belleville of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife holding tiny frogs in a national park. The team treated them with a solution to combat a fungus that has been killing amphibians in many parts of the world for years. To identify treated animals, they were painted with a special paint that glows under black light.

The image by Aman Chokshi shows the giant telescope at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station surrounded by spectacular aurora borealis. Every day during his 14-month stay, Chokshi and a colleague walked the one-kilometer walk to the telescope in temperatures ranging from minus 50 to minus 70 degrees Celsius to remove snow, as he told Nature.

Biologists James Bradley and Catherine Larose, who were photographed while drilling ice in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, also had to endure the cold. Lionel Favre and his Swiss colleagues, meanwhile, want to better understand clouds. Favre's photo shows his colleague Michael Lonardi with a weather balloon in thick fog on Mount Helmos in Greece. The team needed a lot of patience: The weather remained good for almost a month until enough clouds finally formed.

Chinese scientist Hao-Cheng Yu is researching geological profiles of gold-rich regions. One photo shows him entering a hut in Eastern Siberia under a spectacular starry sky. "There's no network there," explained his colleague Jiayi Wang, who took the photo. "The only thing you can do is observe the rocks."

RND/dpa