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)

Tiny pieces of space rocks, called meteorites, are seen burning in the atmosphere over the night sky near Salgótarján, some 109km northeast of Budapest, Hungary, 21 April 2018 (issued 22 April 2018). (Photo by Peter Komka/EPA/EFE)

A protestor makes a selfie in front of a burning car during a national trade union demonstration in Brussels, Thursday November 6, 2014. Tens of thousands of demonstrators are converging on the Belgian capital to protest government policies that will extend the pension age, contain wages and cut into public services. (Photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP Photo)

“«The Red Detachment of Women» (simplified Chinese: 红色娘子军) is a Chinese ballet which premiered in 1964. It is perhaps best known in the West as the ballet performed for U.S. President Richard Nixon on his visit to China in February 1972. Adapted from the earlier film of the same title under the personal direction of Zhou Enlai, which in turn adapted from the novel by Liang Xin, it depicts the liberation of a peasant girl in Hainan Island and her rise in the Chinese Communist Party”.

U.S. Army helicopters providing support for U.S. ground troops fly into a staging area fifty miles northeast of Saigon, Vietnam, August 28, 1966. Helicopter fuel is stored in the large rubber tanks, foreground. (Photo by Henri Huet/AP Photo)

A Saudi police officer receives emergency calls at a call center, ahead of the Hajj pilgrimage in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, August 6, 2019. The hajj occurs once a year during the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, the 12th and final month of the Islamic calendar year. (Photo by Amr Nabil/AP Photo)

View of the work “Divided” (2016), within the visual artist's exhibition “Urs Fischer: Lovers”, exhibited at the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, Mexico 31 March 2022. The sensations and emotions of love and life, as well as the energy and forces that create and wear it down, inhabit “Urs Fischer: Lovers”, the first solo exhibition in Mexico by Swiss plastics artist Urs Fischer. (Photo by Alex Cruz/EPA/EFE)

Dublin Horse Show mascot “Conor the Capall” among the crowds on the opening day of the 147th Dublin Horse Show at the RDS on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, the first to be held since 2019. The event which was first held in 1864 takes place over the next five days and includes national and international show jumping competitions. (Photo by Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)