STUNNING images of the universe have been revealed as part of a celestial photography competition.

The 2020 Astronomy Photographer of the Year Awards received lots of impressive applications and you can see some of them below.

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The winners of the Insight Investment sponsored competition will be revealed via an online Royal Museums Greenwich event on September 10.

Snapshots in the running for a prize include images of far off galaxies and celestial displays with Earthly backdrops.

This year has seen a record number of people enter the competition from almost 70 countries.

It's said to be the biggest space photography competition in the world.

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This image, called Galatic Portal, was captured by a US-based photographer.

Marcin Zajac took this photo in Australia in the coastal town of Kiama.

He went inside a cave to show how stunning the Milky Way looks from that perspective.

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UK entrant Phil Halper is responsible for this eerie image of the Northern Lights.

It shows the famous Geysir of Iceland being outshone by an aurora.

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Canadian astronomy photographer Terry Robison is responsible for this out-of-this-world image.

It shows the NGC 253 - StarbustGalaxy.

This can be found in the Sculptor constellation and is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible to us on Earth.

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Andreas Ettl is a potential winner from Germany who had to wait patiently to get this shot over an idyllic fishing villagein Norway.

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Fans of the London skyline might think this should be the winner.

This snapshot of the Full Moon and The Shard was taken by Mathew Browne.

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Italian entrant Mario Cogo hopes to win with this image of a nebula.

This was taken under the dark Namibian sky over two nights in 2019.

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This image shows the Milky Way above the Moai at Ahu Akivi, a sacred place in Easter Island.

It was taken by Dai Jianfeng, an entrant from China.

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This image shows a visible sunspot.

It's been coloured and enhanced to create this portal-like effect.

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This mystical bat-like dust cloud was created when a star exploded.

The enhanced image, by Josep Drudis, shows a section of the Veil Nebula that looks like a bat.

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In other news, it could be your last chance to spot Comet Neowise in the sky this week.

Incredible imagescaptured from the surface of Marshave been remastered in stunning 4K by genius space fans.

And, astronomers claim to havefound a mysterious spacestructure spanning 1.4 billion light years across called the South Pole Wall.

What's your favourite photo in the competition? Let us know in the comments...

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Mind-blowing Astronomy Photo of the Year competition reveals strange galaxies and space portals - The Sun