Milena Jami whips her llama to win the first place in the a race for children of ages seven and eight at the Llanganates National Park, Ecuador, Saturday, February 8, 2020. Wooly llamas, an animal emblematic of the Andean mountains in South America, become the star for a day each year when Ecuadoreans dress up their prized animals for children to ride them in 500-meter races. (Photo by Dolores Ochoa/AP Photo)

A worker cleans the statue of Yuri Gagarin, the first person who flew to space, ahead of Cosmonautics Day celebrated on April 12, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday April 10, 2019. Cosmonautics Day marks when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, in 1961, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing. (Photo by Maxim Marmur/AP Photo)

A Rohingya refugee bathes at a temporary shelter after arriving by boat in Laweueng, Aceh province on December 27, 2022. Rohingya refugees received emergency medical treatment after a boat carrying nearly 200 people came ashore in Indonesia on December 27, authorities said, in the fourth such landing in the country in recent months. (Photo by Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP Photo)

A Kashmiri Muslim girl reacts to camera as she attends recitation classes of the holy Quran during the fasting month of Ramadan in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Sunday, March 26, 2023. Muslims across the world are observing the holy fasting month of Ramadan, where they refrain from eating, drinking and smoking from dawn to dusk. (Photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP 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)

Children dressed as Hindu deities take part in an event to mark the consecration of Ayodhya Ram temple, in Bhopal on January 22, 2024. (Photo by Gagan Nayar/AFP Photo)

Afghan girls ride a donkey along a street in Argo district at Badakhshan province on July 30, 2024. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)

“A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and injuring more than 500 people (20 had been hospitalized in serious condition), many of them hurt by broken glass. “There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK”, said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometres (930 miles) east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected region”. (Photo by Alexey Bulaew/RIA Nowosti)