2016 Rio Olympics, Gymnastics training, Rio Olympic Arena, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on August 4, 2016. Close up of the feet of Rebecca Downie (GBR) of United Kingdom as she trains on the beam. (Photo by Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

A small section of the expanding remains of the Veil Nebula, a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/ESA/Hubble)

Extraordinary images of the cruise ship by Jonathan Danko Kielkowski from his book Concordia, published by White Press. The German photographer swam out to where the ship – which ran aground off Tuscany in 2012 with the loss of 32 lives – is moored. Francesco Schettino, the ship’s captain, was jailed for 16 years over the accident. (Photo by Jonathan Danko Kielkowski)

A resident walks past big waves spilling over a wall onto a coastal road in the city of Legaspi in Albay province, south of Manila on December 14, 2015, as typhoon Melor approaches the city. More than 700,000 people fled the central Philippines amid threats of giant waves, floods and landslides as powerful Typhoon Melor approached the archipelago nation, officials said December 14. (Photo by Charism Sayat/AFP Photo)

Professor Xie Yong works on an art installation of a beaver, which is made out of plastic and around 300,000 needles, in Shenyang, Liaoning province, July 23, 2013. The needles, according to Xie, represent the pain felt by animals when their fur is taken off to produce clothing. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

From house breaking in Johannesburg to hippos on the loose in Tbilisi to rioters attacking a policewoman in Burundi, Reuters photographers tell the story behind some of the most iconic pictures of the year. Here: Protesters drag a female police officer accused of shooting a protester in the Buterere neighbourhood of Bujumbura, Burundi, May 12, 2015. Goran Tomasevic: Protesters started throwing stones at a group of police, who then started to run away. The policewoman in the photo, Medikintos Inabeza, 33, got left behind and then some protesters started to push her, saying that she had shot a female protestor in the stomach with an AK47 rifle. I didn't see anything of that. There were 5 or 10 protesters pushing the policewoman at first, then others came and joined in. Up to 20 or 30 protesters were surrounding her at one point. The protesters kicked and beat her very badly; I also saw a couple of knives. I thought they were going to kill her... (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A nurse consoles herself with a box of chocolates as she reads a paper-back thriller. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Circa 1955

A violent eruption spews ash more than a kilometer into the sky above Mount Etna in Sicily on February 23, 2021. (Photo by Marco Restivo/Barcroft Studios via Getty Images)