Italy's #01 Valentina Gottardi waits for the ball in the women's pool A beach volleyball match between Italy and Egypt during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Eiffel Tower Stadium in Paris on July 30, 2024. (Photo by Thomas Samson/AFP Photo)

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)

In this September 14, 2017 photo, young women pose for a photo inside their squatter building that used to house the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in the Mangueira slum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Many lower-middle class Brazilians who gained ground during the boom years have since slid back closer to the poverty line. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

A woman who was injured after being trampled is helped away, after residents desperate for a planned distribution of food for those suffering under Kenya's coronavirus-related movement restrictions pushed through a gate and created a stampede, causing police to fire tear gas and leaving several injured, at a district office in the Kibera slum, or informal settlement, of Nairobi, Friday, April 10, 2020. (Photo by Brian Inganga/AP Photo)

Steven Busulwa, an animal keeper, runs away from a charging rhino at the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Center (UWEC) amid the lockdown as part of the measures taken to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), within Wakiso district, in Entebbe, Uganda on April 20, 2020. (Photo by Abubaker Lubowa/Reuters)

Emma Raducanu of Great Britain hits a return to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland during their quarterfinals round match on the tenth day of the US Open Tennis Championships the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA, 08 September 2021. The US Open runs from 30 August through 12 September. (Photo by Justin Lane/EPA/EFE)

A day-old lamb exploring new surroundings on the vernal equinox, considered the first day of spring, on March 20, 2019 at Coombes Farm in Lancing, England. (Photo by Andrew Hasson/Getty Images)

A runner competes in the Great Wall Marathon at the Huangyaguan Great Wall outside Beijing, China, May 18, 2019. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)