School girls hold hands while looking out at the Indian Ocean at Galle Face beach in Colombo on December 9, 2022. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

A woman uses her smartphone walking past a mural depicting members of Russia's Yunarmiya (Young Army) youth patriotic movement in Moscow on May 14, 2024. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP Photo)

Sailors pause to take a photo with characters in Times Square during “Fleet Week 2024” in New York City on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

Multicolored nets are set under olive trees to collect the olives on November 27, 2013 in Castagniers, southeastern France. (Photo by Valery Hache/AFP Photo)

Dawn at Blyth beach huts in Northumberland, with the prospect of warm weather over the coming weekend on Friday, October 8, 2021. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)

A dog takes a dip in the river Elbe on February 6, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany.The current cold front that has claimed over 200 lives in eastern Europe makes its way west. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

Nepali members of the LGBT community take part in a Gay Pride parade in Kathmandu on August 8, 2017. Scores of gays, lesbians, transvestites and transsexuals from across the country took part in the rally to spread their campaign for sexual rights in the country. In 2013 Nepal introduced citizenships with a third gender option and began issuing passports reflecting the same in 2015. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

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)