Each year, human eyes and instruments reach into the dark to find the universe looking back in unexpected forms. In 2026, the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition — organized by Royal Museums Greenwich and the optics company ZWO — gathered 31 winning images from photographers around the world, among them a nebula so unmistakably shaped like a shark that it became a kind of cosmic joke and cosmic proof at once. The competition reminds us that the boundary between professional and amateur stargazer has quietly dissolved, and that the night sky remains one of the last great commons