Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

Second place, Nature: double trapping. Picture taken in the Brazilian Pantanal ... when I downloaded the CF did not want to believe it ... The nature knows we always give magnificent events but sometimes extraordinary. (Photo by Massimiliano Bencivenni/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

These spectacular images of the universe are the finalists in the 2016 CWAS “David Malin” awards. The annual competition, which celebrates the best astronomy images taken by Australian photographers, is part of AstroFest 2016. The winners will be announced on 16 July. An associated exhibition opens the following day at the CSIRO Parkes Observatory visitors centre, and a second exhibition will also travel to selected venues around Australia. Here: Mars and its Rival Antares and the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. (Photo by Phil Hart/CWAS/The Guardian)

Rihanna performs onstage during the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards at Madison Square Garden on August 28, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/FilmMagic)

In this Wednesday, March, 5, 2014 photo, Afghan female boxers practice at the Kabul Stadium boxing club, Afghanistan. The women, who are 18 and older, don't have much more than determination, and a trainer who runs them through their paces, watches as they spar, corrects their technique, tells them when to jab, how to protect themselves, when to power through with a left and then a right. (Photo by Massoud Hossaini/AP Photo)

Fifth Harmony accept the most buzzworthy international artist or group award during the iHeartRadio Much Music Video Awards (MMVAs) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada June 19, 2016. (Photo by Fred Thornhill/Reuters)

Puppies, pugs and the perfect antidote to political pandemonium, it’s the Kennel Club’s dog photographer of the year competition. Here: Jamie Morgan’s two Afghan hounds won first place in the portrait category. (Photo by Jamie Morgan/PA Wire)

Some of the best entries so far in the 2016 Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. There are two weeks left to enter, and the winners will be announced in September. Here: Aurora over Laksvatn Fjord, Laksvatn, Norway. The aurora borealis dances in the skies over the town of Laksvatn, with the Milky Way to the left. The image is a single shot with no compositing, only post-processing to bring out the aurora, and some colour corrections. The photographer Matt Walford said: “I love the way the northern lights look like they are just wistfully dancing over the fjord, framed by the mountains on either side”. (Photo by Matt Walford/National Maritime Museum)