Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. walks near the Lunar Module during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity July 20, 1969 on the Moon. (Photo by NASA/Newsmakers)

Gorgeous galaxies and stunning stars make up this selection of pictures from the shortlisted entries for this year’s Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year award. The winners will be announced on 15 September, and an exhibition of the winning images will be will be displayed in a free exhibition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Centre from 17 September. Here: “Seven Magic Points”. The rusty red swirls of the circular, iron sculpture Seven Magic Points in Brattebergan, Norway mirror the rippling aurora above. (Photo by Rune Engebø/Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016/National Maritime Museum)

A child playfully jumps into the water accumulated at a flooded area next to a house after rising water levels in the rivers caused flooding at Jhusi area of Allahabad on August 6, 2021. (Photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP Photo)

A person looks at a giant sculpture depicting the funerary mask of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, titled “A Meal Fit for a King” and created by Microdesk, Inc. made out of 8,300 cans of tuna which will be donated to local food banks as part of the Canstruction exhibition in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 11, 2022. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

Jesse Larios, 33, from Los Angeles, wears a bear suit while walking along Hollister Road in Gilroy, California, U.S., April 21, 2021. Larios, also known as Bear Sun on social media, is walking from his home in Los Angeles to San Francisco while wearing the bear suit as a social media fundraising event. (Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small/Reuters)

This image is NGC 6543 known as the Cat's Eye Nebula as it appears to the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Hubble Telescope. A planetary nebula is a phase of stellar evolution that the sun should experience several billion years from now, when it expands to become a red giant and then sheds most of its outer layers, leaving behind a hot core that contracts to form a dense white dwarf star. This image was released October 10, 2012. (Photo by J. Kastner/NASA/CXC/RIT)

“Tardigrades (commonly known as waterbears or moss piglets) are small, water-dwelling, segmented animals with eight legs. Tardigrades were first discovered in 1773 by Johann August Ephraim Goeze, who called them kleiner Wasserbär, meaning “little water bear” in German. The name Tardigrada means “slow walker” and was given by Lazzaro Spallanzani in 1777. The name water bear comes from the way they walk, reminiscent of a bear's gait. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 millimetres (0.059 in), the smallest below 0.1 mm. Freshly hatched tardigrades may be smaller than 0.05 mm”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Tardigrades. (Photo by SPL/East News)

Pottery heads by artist Johan Thunell are displayed at The Affordable Art Fair on March 15, 2012 in London, England. 120 galleries are displaying works costing from £40 – £4000. Photography, paintings, prints and sculptures are on sale from 15–18th March 2012. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)