Best Travel Pictures of 2013 Named

Photograph by Wagner Araujo

Competitors in the Brazilian Aquathlon run in Rio Negro in the winning image of National Geographic's 2013 Traveler Photo Contest.

"I photographed it from the water and my lens got completely wet, but there was so much energy in these boys that I just didn't worry about it," said photographer Wagner Araujo of Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

National Geographic Traveler director of photography Dan Westergren, one of this year's judges, said: "This photo really captures my attention because of the peak action it depicts. I love the horizontal tension caused by the main subject on his way out of the picture to the right."

The 25th annual photo contest received more than 15,000 entries in four categories: Travel Portraits, Outdoor Scenes, Sense of Place, and Spontaneous Moments. (See all the entries.)

Published August 1, 2013

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Pictures: What's Inside a Space Suit? X-Rays Reveal All

Image courtesy Mark Avino and Roland H. Cunningham, SI

The space suit above was built as a demonstration suit for testing in a vacuum chamber at NASA's Ames Research Center.

The chamber was designed to simulate the environment in outer space. Astronauts would get into their suits, hook themselves up to oxygen, and then go into the vacuum chamber, which simulated the environment at an altitude of 400,000 feet (121 kilometers).

"They were then asked to do repetitive and somewhat mind-numbing tasks, like walking up and down on a crate, so that technicians could check their suits," said Lewis.

Though the space program was relatively young in the late 1960s when this suit was developed, it was building off of almost 20 years of experience with hardened suit designs. They were originally made for the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s, back when the Air Force used vacuum tubes in aircraft. (See pictures of early U.S. spaceflight.)

"But many of the vacuum tubes were failing," said Lewis. "And they needed to figure out why."

Enter Litton Industries. The large defense contractor, which was bought by Northrop Grumman Corporation in 2001, designed a vacuum chamber to test why the vacuum tubes were failing. But to do that, they needed to design a suit for a technician to wear while inside the vacuum chamber.

"The Air Force was intrigued," said Lewis. "Even after they discontinued the use of vacuum tubes in aircraft, they continued to fund Litton's suits. And when NASA formed [in 1958], they took over much of the research in suit development from the Air Force."

In the years that followed, hundreds of people worked on space suits: Engineers designed the suits, technicians tested them, manufacturers created the parts, and then other folks assembled the final product.

"You can't tell by the x-ray, but some of the components are hand-sewn," said Lewis.

Published July 29, 2013

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Pictures We Love: Best of July

  Photograph by Gabriele Putzu, European Pressphoto Agency

Germany's Anna Bader plunges headfirst during the 2013 Cliff Diving European Championship in Ponte Brolla, Switzerland, on July 20.

Professional divers jump from heights between 60 and 89 feet (18 to 27 meters) into what is known as one of the most dangerous—and frigid—cliff-diving spots in the world.

Why We Love It

"What makes this photo interesting for me is not only the tensity brought on by the perfectly poised diver leaping from the cliffs, but also the depth of the background behind her. The even light allows us to clearly see and appreciate all the different onlookers throughout the scene, who become individual points of interest and color rather than a mess of indistinguishable bodies." —Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

(See Pictures We Love: June.)

—Jaclyn Skurie

Published August 1, 2013

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Pictures: Oil Spill Sullies Popular Tourist Beach in Thailand

Photograph by Athit Perawongmetha, Reuters

Members of Thailand's military dressed in white hazmat suits shovel oil-soaked sand from Ao Prao Beach on Thailand's Samet Island (map) on Monday after crude oil from a leak out at sea washed ashore.

The oil spill happened on July 27 about 12 miles (20 kilometers) off the coast of Thailand's Rayong province, located southeast of the capital city of Bangkok. The source was a pipeline operated by PTT Global Chemical, a subsidiary of the state-owned oil and gas company. The company estimates that about 13,000 gallons (50,000 liters) of heavy crude oil escaped into the Gulf of Thailand. (See related quiz: "What You Don't Know About Oil Spills.")

Doug Helton, incident operations coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said the cleanup workers in Thailand are likely taking a "triage approach" to cleaning up the spill.

"The first step in any spill is controlling the source of the oil," Helton explained. "The next step is to pick up all of the loose, mobile oil that might still be moving around. And the last stage will be the cleanup of the shore itself."

—Ker Than

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Published July 30, 2013

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