Beautiful, strange and occasionally alarming pictures from the shortlist for this year’s Wellcome image awards – which celebrate the very best in science photography and imaging – from an x-ray of a bat to a micrograph of a kidney stone. The exhibition opens on 12 March at three science centres and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Photo: Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower, also commonly known as thale cress. Some of the anthers are open, revealing pollen grains ready for dispersal. Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced and is widely used as a model organism in molecular and plant biology. Horizontal width of image is 1200 microns. Magnification 100x. (Photo by Stefan Eberhard/Wellcome Images)

A replica of the Wall-E character is remotely controlled with a mobile phone by Bolivian student Esteban Quispe, 17, in Patacamaya, south of La Paz, December 10, 2015. Quispe built the Wall-E robot using materials he obtained from a rubbish dump in the town located in the Andean highland region. He hopes to mechanize agriculture in Patacamaya by making use of robots that operate on solar energy, Quispe told Reuters. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

Is it the surface of the Mars or Venus or an undiscovered planet? Not at all. These pictures aren’t what you think they are. Christopher Jonassen, a Norwegian photographer shot these beautiful and otherworldly series called ‘Devour of frying pan bottoms’, which are visually similar to craters and scars on a planet’s surface. In his series Jonassen refers to a quote of Jean-Paul Satre who said: ‘To eat is to appropriate destruction’ and the meaning of the word ‘devour’, which stands for eating up greedily, destroying, consuming, and wasting.

A couple passes the sculpture “Transformer” by Chinese artist Bi Heng during snowfall in Kassel, central Germany, Tuesday March 12, 2013. Frankfurt airport closed, a quarter of flights out of Paris were canceled, Belgium suffered record traffic jams and high-speed trains were stuck in stations – all because of a sudden dump of oddly late snowfall on Western Europe. Less prepared for the kind of heavy snow that regularly hits northern and eastern neighbors, France, Britain and Belgium struggled Tuesday to keep moving amid the frosty, blustery conditions. (Photo by Uwe Zucchi/AP Photo/Dpa)

Two woman lie in a puddle of squashed tomatoes during the annual “Tomatina” tomato fight fiesta, in the village of Bunol, 50 kilometers outside Valencia, Spain, Wednesday, August 26, 2015. The streets of an eastern Spanish town are awash with red pulp as thousands of people pelt each other with tomatoes in the annual "Tomatina" battle that has become a major tourist attraction. At the annual fiesta in Bunol on Wednesday, trucks dumped 150 tons of ripe tomatoes for some 22,000 participants, many from abroad to throw during the hour-long morning festivities. (Photo by Alberto Saiz/AP Photo)

Visitors look at an artwork “Hierarchy of Prosperity” created by Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho during the VIP preview of the art fair “Art Basel” in Hong Kong, Tuesday, March 22, 2016. A set of gold-plated metal cubes, tapestries embroidered by unknown North Korean artisans and bales of cardboard waste are among the highlights of the Art Basel Hong Kong fair opening this week. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

(L-R) Maria Silva, Milena Cortes, Maria Arteaga, Jackeline Bastidas and Gissy Abello pose for a picture at the Famproa dogs shelter where they work, in Los Teques, Venezuela, August 25, 2016. Venezuelans struggling to feed their families let alone their pets are dumping animals on the streets, in parks and at makeshift homes overrun with scrawny animals amid an economic crisis. An hour from Caracas in Los Teques, hundreds of dogs bark and run around the streets scavenging for food outside a makeshift shelter. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)