The competition is run by Royal Observatory Greenwich sponsored by Insight Investment and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine. This year astrophotographers from 91 countries sent in more than 4,200 spectacular entries. Here: The Milky Way rises above an isolated lighthouse in Tasmania. Shot by James Stone of Australia. (Photo by James Stone/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Dancers resting on the rooftop of the SKD Theatre Asakusa, Tokyo, 1949. (Photo by Tanuma Takeyoshi/The Guardian)

An Iraqi soldier stands guard as a pipeline burns in the background after an explosion 30 kilometers (20 miles) northeast of Tikrit, Iraq, Monday, February 11, 2008. (Photo by Bassem Daham/AP Photo)

This aerial view shows youths swimming to cool off in the waters of Iraq's Euphrates river during a heatwave, in the district of al-Hindiyah east of Karbala on June 7, 2024. (Photo by Karar Jabbar/AFP Photo)

Schoolchildren from local schools take part in the children's races prior to the annual Pancake race in Olney, Buckinghamshire, England, Tuesday, February 25, 2020. Every year women clad in aprons and head scarves from Olney and the city of Liberal, in Kansas, USA, run their respective legs of the race with pancakes in their pans. According to legend, the Olney race started in 1445 when a harried housewife arrived at church on Shrove Tuesday still clutching her frying pan with a pancake in it. (Photo by Alastair Grant/AP Photo)

Nature, singles winner: Frogs with their legs severed struggle to the surface, surrounded by frogspawn, after being thrown back into the water in Covasna, Romania. (Photo by Bence Mate/World Press Photo 2019)

Shaolin martial arts students perform Kung Fu suspended on wires in a rehearsal for a live-action night show in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China on April 28, 2018. (Photo by Reuters/China Stringer Network)

Shiite Muslim pilgrims march with flags en route to Karbala from Nasiriyah in Iraq's southern Dhi Qar province on September 5, 2022, ahead of the holiday of Arbaeen. (Photo by Asaad Niazi/AFP Photo)