2022 National Geographic pictures of the year

Tori Schneebaum

featured

Dec 1, 2022

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Armando Salazar, a member of the Spanish military, helps scientists collect samples during a 2021 eruption at La Palma’s Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge.

Arturo Rodriguez

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With its Artemis I mission, NASA is kicking off an ambitious plan to return humans to the moon. For the scheduled launch, this uncrewed trip’s commander would be the “moonikin” Campos.

Dan Winters/National Geographic

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Captured via drone, caribou from the Western Arctic herd gallop across a valley near the small town of Ambler during their spring migration.

Katie Orlinsky/National Geograph

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Six- month-old panda cubs snacking and playing as part of her long-term focus on giant panda conservation.

Ami Vitale/National Geographic

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At sunset on April 27, Evan Green caught climber Thomas Moore walking amid the tents pitched at Camp I framed by Everest (at left), Lhotse (center), and Nuptse (at right).

Evan Green

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Five weeks into the journey of the National Geographic expedition ship Polar Sun, photographer Renan Ozturk found himself exploring a bay off the coast of Greenland.

Renan Ozturk/National Geographic

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Photographed at night with an infrared camera, a spotted hyena that scientists nicknamed Palazzo submissively grins and lays her ears back as Moulin Rouge, the clan’s dominant female at the time, towers over her. Palazzo’s cub peers out from between them.

Jen Guyton/National Geographic

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Ukrainian refugee Ludmyla Kuchebko, 72, in the Polish town of Przemyśl near the border.

Anastasia Taylor-Lind/National G

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Quannah Rose Chasinghorse uses her visibility to advocate for concerns of Indigenous peoples.

Kiliii Yüyan/National Geographi

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Under a harvest moon on a hazy morning in Brazil’s Emas National Park, a lowland tapir known to park staff as Preciosa ambles down a road.

Katie Orlinsky/National Geograph

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Around Vostok and other southern Line Islands, in the remote central Pacific, abundant small reef fish support a thriving population of top predators.

Enric Sala/National Geographic

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When cracks opened up in the Cumbre Vieja ridge in September 2021, they set off one of the most destructive volcanic eruptions in the Canary Islands in 500 years.

Carsten Peter/National Geographi

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For more on this story, visit natgeo.com/photos

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