A distant world in a dishPengjun GuoAward: Top 100
School: experimental high school attached to beijing normal university The exotic outer-planet-like scene results from the anisotropic scattering, Rayleigh scattering, and reflection phenomena at the edge of a crystallization dish containing hexakis(urea) iron(III) sulfate. This chemical, prepared by me, has needle-like crystals with different orientations. When light penetrates them, they will be oriented in different directions, based on the arrangements of crystals, which is called anisotropic scattering. This phenomenon is frequently used in the determination of crystal structure. Since the light has various directions and the camera can only catch the light oriented toward them, vibrant contrast between light and dark is created. The blue, atmosphere-like blue halos result from the Rayleigh scattering of the glass, in which blue and violet light with smaller wavelengths will be dispersed more than other lights because glass is an amorphous solid. The nebulas on the top of the image are created from the reflection of the crystals on the curved surface, making them more distorted and stretched like true nebulas in the universe. I took my image by shining a flashlight on the edge of the bottom of the crystallizing dish, to make sure the light was oriented enough for the special scattering to emerge. 
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