This is the incredible moment a fierce lightning bolt crashed against the Grand Canyon illuminating the steep canyon walls. Shrouded in darkness, the breath-taking landscape was shocked into life as mother nature sent the bolt storming down to Earth. As it cracked against the rocks the bright blue bolt illuminated the South Rim of the canyon, considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. With just the Desert View Watchtower in the foreground, the lightning was perfectly framed by the canyon which is located in Arizona, USA. (Photo by Travis Roe/U.S. Dept. of the Interior/Caters News)

Underwater photographer of the year – winner. Dancing Octopus by Gabriel Barathieu (France). Location: Island of Mayotte, off the coast of south-east Africa. “Balletic and malevolent”, one judge said of this octopus, hunting in a lagoon. Barathieu waited until spring tides when there was just 30cm of water on the flats and plenty of light in the shallows. (Photo by Gabriel Barathieu/UPY2017)

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)

A Thai Yoga enthusiast performs during a mass yoga exercise in Bangkok, Thailand, 16 June 2019. Hundreds of Thai and foreign Yoga enthusiasts took part in the mass Yoga exercise organized by the Indian embassy to mark the International Day of Yoga which annually celebrated on 21 June. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA/EFE)

A woman travels on a train stopping at a subway station visited by foreign reporters in central Pyongyang, North Korea on April 14, 2017. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

People attend New York's Annual Village Halloween Parade dressed as soldiers from the United Nations in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., October 31, 2022. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

A view of the platform of the Leviathan natural gas field in the Mediterranean Sea is pictured from the Israeli northern coastal beach of Nasholim, on August 29, 2022. (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP Photo)

A model attends a fashion show at the “German Fetish Ball” in Berlin, Germany on May 12, 2018. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)