‘Showing the beauty’: Chinese teens inspire with stunning galaxy photo, snapping up top youth prize at famed astrophotography contest in UK
- The 14-year-old winners Yang Hanwen and Zhou Zezhen won the prize by impressing judges with a collaborative photo of the Andromeda Galaxy
- The pair became friends online, bonding over a love of astronomy and worked together to create the winning photo without meeting in person
Two Chinese teenagers who won the 2022 Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London have become trending stars on mainland social media.
The 14-year-old winners Yang Hanwen from southeastern China, and Zhou Zezhen from eastern China, won the prize with their collaborative image Andromeda Galaxy: The Neighbor, CCTV News reported.
The two teens who met online and bonded over a shared love of astronomy created their winning image by working together over the internet and had not met in person before winning the award.
Yang has been a keen amateur astronomer since he was 12 years old after seeing a movie and convinced his parents to buy him a space telescope last year.
With the help of staff at an astronomy research facility in Yunnan, southwestern China, his telescope was set up to enable Yang to observe and take real-time images of deep space galaxies remotely from his laptop.
Yang targeted the Andromeda Galaxy because it is one of the closest and largest neighbours of the Milky Way.
“When you look at it with the naked eye it’s like fog, but through the telescope, it shows its magnificence,” Yang said.