A woman walks between Christmas trees at a Christmas market opened prior to incoming Christmas and New Year festivities in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, December 15, 2023. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A competitor competes during the Hortobagy Hobby Horse Cup in Tiszafured, Hungary, on October 26, 2024. (Photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters)

An Indonesian man (C), one of two to be publicly caned for having s*x, is caned in Banda Aceh on May 23, 2017. .The pair, aged 20 and 23, were found guilty of having broken sharia rules in conservative Aceh province – the only part of Indonesia that implements Islamic law – and sentenced to 85 strokes of the cane each. (Photo by Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP Photo)

Tommy Lindsey holds an enormous maple leaf that he found in Mount Vernon, Wash., October 28, 2013. Lindsey was walking with his family when he picked up the leaf that is more than two feet from stem to tip and more than 21 inches wide. (Photo by Frank Varga/The Skagit Valley Herald)

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 demonstrator is carried during a rally in support of a identity check draft law and against delinquency, in Santiago, Chile April 30, 2016. (Photo by Carlos Vera/Reuters)

Fish are thrown onto a truck during a winter fishing festival held on the frozen Wulungu Lake in Fuhai county, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, January 18, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

In this photo taken in October 1917, provided by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, a machine gunner looks through a window at his position near the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Photo by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive via AP Photo)