A boy runs with a burning barrel soaked in tar at the annual Ottery St Mary tar barrel festival on November 5, 2015 in Ottery St. Mary, England. The tradition, which is over 400 years old, sees competitors (who must have been born in the town to take part) running with burning barrels on their backs through the village, until the heat becomes too unbearable or the barrel breaks down, starting with junior barrels carried by children and continuing all evening with ever larger and larger barrels. The event, which has been threatened with closure on previous years due to increasing public liability insurance costs, raises thousands of pounds for charity and attracts spectators from around the world. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

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)

A man flies a kite on the Bund while buildings of Pudong's Lujiazui financial district stand across the Huangpu River as the sun rises in Shanghai, China, on Friday, October 2, 2015. (Photo by Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)

A youth dives into a crater filled with water in Aleppo's al-Shaar district, in this July 10, 2014 file photo. (Photo by Hosam Katan/Reuters)

People fight for the ball as they take part in a mud football match during a festival for celebrating harvest in a village in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China September 24, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/China Stringer Network)

A female sniper of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) monitors the area during a celebration at the iconic Al- Naim square in Raqa on October 19, 2017, after retaking the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. The SDF fighters flushed jihadist holdouts from Raqa' s main hospital and municipal stadium, wrapping up a more than four- month offensive against what used to be the inner sanctum of IS' s self- proclaimed “caliphate”. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP Photo)

In this photograph taken on October 27, 2017 an Afghan woman collects saffron flowers after picking them in a field on the outskirt of Herat For years, Afghanistan has tried to give farmers alternatives such as fruit crops and saffron to wean them away from poppy farming – the lifeblood of the Taliban insurgency. International donors have splurged billions of dollars on counter- narcotics efforts in Afghanistan over the past decade, including efforts to encourage farmers to switch to other cash crops such as saffron. But those efforts have shown little results. (Photo by Hoshang Hashimi/AFP Photo)

People walk past stranded cargo ship “Ocean Crown” during a windy weather in Klaipeda, Lithuania on December 26, 2017. (Photo by Ints Kalnins/Reuters)