Commons:Wiki Science Competition 2023/Winners/United States

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People in Science · Microscopy images · Non-photographic media · Wildlife & nature · Astronomy images · General category · Image sets ··· Winners

This gallery contains the national finalists of the 2023 Wiki Science Competition in the United States. The jury selected 45 finalists across seven categories from 465 submissions. These images represent the United States at the international level.

ASTRONOMY
Andromeda and integrated flux nebulae by Association of Widefield Astrophotographers. The famous Andromeda Galaxy and its extensive outer halo, revealing various faint structures, some very recently discovered. The data is mostly from high schoolers and college students, proving that very expensive equipment and dark skies aren't required to create unique images of faint objects. National Jury's Choice Award		2023 annular eclipse by Dpickd1. This image was taken from the exact midpoint location of eclipse in Southern Utah, at exact midpoint time of the eclipse, therefore the moon is perfectly centered over the sun.		Gamma cas nebula by Ram Samudrala. The nebula is strikingly illuminated by the bright blue star gamma cassiopeiae, observed in the bottom right quadrant in the image. The star's extremely rapid rotation is also responsible for pushing and dispersing the emissions of these nebulae into the interstellar medium even though they are located light years apart.
Flying Bat and Squid Nebulae by Ram Samudrala. The Squid nebula occupies over one degree of the night sky, representing the largest angular extent ever found in a planetary nebula. It is an extremely faint nebula that resides within the larger Flying Bat nebula (sh2-129) which tends to overshadow it, making it a challenging target to image.		Starlink satellite over Mt. Rainier by WhatWeGetFromThisAdventure. A trail of Starlink satellites in the night sky over Mt. Rainier National Park.		Lion Nebula of Cepheus by Ram Samudrala. Multiple stars apparently worked in concert to create the Lion's distinctive shape, with at least two hot, massive, eruptive stars known as Wolf-Rayet identified, as well other bubbles/shells of outwardly exploding gases with stars in the centre discovered.
		Perseid meteor and Andromeda by Phiteros. A meteor from the 2023 Perseid meteor shower flying in front of the Andromeda galaxy.
MICROSCOPY
Stem cell distribution in Hydra vulgaris by Ben.d.cox. A population of interstitial stem cells (yellow) gives rise to neurons, gland cells, gametes, and stinging cells. These stem cells are located only in the the outer tissue layer of the body column, but must make it to locations in the entire animal through the extracellular matrix (magenta). National Jury's Choice Award		Gorgonilla spherules by Hermannbermudez. During the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago, millions of tons of molten and vaporized rock were ejected into the atmosphere. As these materials cooled, they were distributed throughout the planet in the form of glass spherules like these, collected on Gorgonilla Island in the Colombian Pacific.		Human brain cell organoid by Nreis1. 2D cryosection of a human brain organoid.
Flounder larva by Taeylenol. Flounder larva found off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, imaged under a dissecting scope.		Crystals in Song Dynasty glaze by Chandra L. Reedy. Crystals formed during production of a Chinese Song Dynasty "hare’s fur" glaze on a ceramic tea bowl, as seen in a petrographic thin section. Long clear needles of anorthite grow out from the edge of the ceramic body, and small brown iron oxide crystals have precipitated onto their upper edges.		Posterior end of a nematode by Nemataslg. The copulatory bursa of the nematode Vexillata armandae collected from the coarse haired pocket mouse (Chaetodipus hispidus) in the Sandhills of Nebraska.
		Deer sperm under fluorescence microscopy by Theprevetvikng. A sample of epididymal white-tailed deer spermatozoa viewed under fluorescent microscopy. The acrosome is stained green, the rest of the head purple or pink, and the tail red. The brighter the stain, the more capable that particular spermatozoan is at fertilizing an oocyte.
WILDLIFE AND NATURE
Crown shyness by Mimk0205. Crown shyness is a feature observed in some tree species, in which the crowns of fully stocked trees do not touch each other, instead forming a canopy with channel-like gaps. National Jury's Choice Award		Whitebark pine forest by Treelove776. A whitebark pine-dominated forest in the eastern Sierra Nevada. Whitebark pine is imperiled by climate change, bark beetles and disease, and recently listed as endangered due to its rapid decline. It provides critical habitat for a diversity of wildlife, and regions with high mortality experience dramatic shifts in water and nutrient cycling.		Brown marmorated stink bug by Hyllir. Macro photograph of a brown marmorated stink bug.
Gator reflections by Sam D. Hamilton. Perfectly calm water allowed a capture of this gator and reflection in Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge.		Bamboo grove by Yuo7si. A skyward shot of the Arashiyama bamboo grove in Japan.		Female lion showing teeth by Thecodemachine. A female lion showing teeth.
		Pacific sea nettle by Ashley98lee. Pacific Sea Nettles swimming.
PEOPLE IN SCIENCE
Fritz Goro at work by Saidelsky. Fritz Goro was the premier science photographer in the U.S. and the inventor of macrophotography. This is a 1972 photograph in the laboratory of Drs. Hubel and Weisel at Harvard Medical School, where he was hired to illustrate their investigations of vision in monkeys, for which they won the Nobel Prize in 1981. National Jury's Choice Award		Vortex draining by Wlwiener. A one-liter volumetric flask being drained via vortex draining by a chemist. Vortex draining is done to more quickly drain the bottle and to avoid glugging.		Antarctic snow pit by Kendrick15435. This covered snow pit in Antarctica is illuminated by sun light shining through the snow from an adjacent pit. The dark layers are winter snow and the light layers are summer snow.
Scientist examines an ice core by Kendrick15435. This ice core was recovered as part of the WAIS DIvide ice core project, which recovered the most detailed record yet of atmospheric carbon dioxide spanning the last 68,000 years.		Digging through a million years of history by Shibajyotidas. Geologists in Burgess Shale and Walcott Quarry, Alberta, Canada.		WAIS Divide ice core by Kendrick15435. This drill was used as part of the WAIS Divide ice core project to collect an ice core that contained a record of how and why climate changed in the past.
		Randall Munroe at Strange Loop by Σ. Randall Munroe speaks about how he came to draw comics full time, his greatest hits, his "What If..?" book series, how to inspire life-long curiosity and love for science, and the life lessons he learned along the way, at the "Strange Loop" conference in St Louis, Missouri, in 2023.
GENERAL
Stool culture on agar by Mediocreclementine. A stool culture that has been grown on Hektoen enteric agar. It exhibits two differential traits for two different microbes: the orange color indicates fermentation of lactose, likely from E. coli, while the black coloris from the microbial production of hydrogen sulfide, and is often seen in Salmonella spp. National Jury's Choice Award		Ice core drill head by Kendrick15435. This drill was used as part of the WAIS Divide ice core project. The ice core that extends out of the drill was collected from a depth of about 2 km and is clear because all the atmospheric air trapped in the ice has been pushed in to clathrates by the pressure of the ice above it.		Fagradalsfjall volcanic eruption by Yuo7si. A close-up image of the Fagradalsfjall volcanic eruption in Iceland showing bubbling lava.
Time travelling 500 million years back by Shibajyotidas. A trilobite fossil from Burgess Shale, Walcott Quarry, Alberta Canada.		Cloud-to-ground lightning strike by Phiteros. An intense cloud-to-ground lightning strike near Goldendale, Washington.		Nature wins by LittleLeafSheep. This tree has grown around the fire hydrant making it unusable, depicting how nature can adapt and overwhelm man-made structures.
		Wind turbines in fog by Phiteros. Wind turbines on a foggy hillside in the Columbia Gorge between Maryhill and Goldendale in Washington.
NON-PHOTOGRAPHIC MEDIA
Bacteriophage T4 infection lifecycle by David S. Goodsell. At left, a bacteriophage is injecting its DNA genome into an E. coli cell. At center, the bacteriophage has taken over the cell, destroying the cellular DNA and forcing the cell to make many new copies of itself. At right, the bacteriophage produces a channel-forming protein that pierces the inner cell membrane, allowing breakdown of its peptidoglycan sheath. The cell bursts, releasing several hundred new bacteriophages. National Jury's Choice Award		Turbulence stretching orientation map by Terry Brannigan. The stretching alignment field is essentially a map of the directions in which every infinitesimal particle of a fluid is being pulled at a given moment. My research aims to find the dominant coherent structures of stretching alignment fields, which we believe are largely responsible for the unpredictable, rare events of turbulence.		Solutions to characteristic polynomials of degree 7 by Trra02. This image shows a 2D histogram on the complex plane of the number of solutions from a given set of polynomials generated from a set of 7x7 matrices. This heat map can be interpreted as a plot of the probability that a random matrix will have a characteristic polynomial with a solution in a certain location.
IMAGE SETS
		Imperiled and vulnerable flora of Ohio by Liliumoryza. Some of these plants are limited to a single habitat in the state. For example, Platanthera ciliaris is limited to two populations on one of the rarest habitat types in the world, oak savannas, while the the Ohio population of the diminutive orchid Cypripedium candidum is limited to a single remnant prairie near Sandusky. National Jury's Choice Award
		Amino acid birefringence by Aw1792300. Amino acids were dissolved and re-crystallized on a glass slide, and then captured by a polarizing microscope.
		Nevis linear particle accelerator by CUBIST DEBRIS. A two-beam linear accelerator array designed to replicate conditions where stars form. Insofar as astrophysicists look at many data sets from different sources to develop their hypotheses and concepts of the cosmos, so too, the remixed images of the accelerator apparatus are another way of viewing the laboratory environment.
		Crystals in Song Dynasty glaze by Chandra L. Reedy. Crystals formed during production of Chinese Song Dynasty "hare’s fur" and "oil spot" glazes on a ceramic tea bowl, as seen in a petrographic thin section. Features of anorthite and brown iron oxide crystals are visible.
		Vitamin C birefringence by Aw1792300. Vitamin C was dissolved and re-crystallized on a glass slide, and then captured by a polarizing microscope.
		Fallout from Chernobyl by Yuo7si. Gas masks scattered on the ground in an abandoned school, and medical specimens in jars found in an abandoned hospital, in Pripyat, Ukraine.
		Wildlife of Uganda by Thecodemachine. Various animals found in Uganda.

Jury

• John P. Sadowski, Wikimedia District of Columbia (coordinator)
• Annie Rauwerda, Depths of Wikipedia creator
• Ben Inouye, 2021 U.S. Jury's Choice Prize and International Runner-Up for "Milky Way at Joshua Tree"
• Callan Carpenter, 2019 U.S. Jury's Choice Prize and International Runner-Up for "Killer whales hunting a seal"
• Jake Saunders, 2019 U.S. Jury's Choice Prize for "Earthworm head"
• Jamie Flood, Wikipedian-in-Residence at National Agricultural Library
• Jeremy Axelrod, 2019 U.S. Jury's Choice Prize and International QSORT Prize for "See the light"
• Kevin Payravi, Wikimedia District of Columbia
• Laura Soito, Associate Dean for Content and Discovery, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Michael Adler, 2017 and 2019 U.S. Jury's Choice Prize and International Runner-Up for "Total Solar Eclipse" and "Jupiter's South Polar Region"
• Natalie Carrigan, 2019 International Runner-Up for "3D projection of a Patiria miniata bipinnaria"
• Tom Wagner, 2017 International Runner-Up for "Birefringent Water Ice"
• Verne Lehmberg, 2021 U.S. Jury's Choice Prize and International Runner-Up for "Sticky geranium anther"