Today's best photos: from the Dart spacecraft to French Spider-Man

‘The National’ selects the most striking pictures from around the world

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft onboard, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. A NASA mission to deliberately smash a spacecraft into an asteroid - a test run should humanity ever need to stop a giant space rock from wiping out life on Earth. AFPShow less

AFP

Dart launch hits the bullseye

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or Dart, spacecraft on board, at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This is a Nasa mission to deliberately smash a spacecraft into an asteroid – a test run should humanity ever need to stop a giant space rock from wiping out life on Earth.

Requiem mass for Sir David Amess

Politicians (L-R) former prime ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the requiem mass for Sir David Amess MP at Westminster Cathedral in London. Cardinal Vincent Nichols held the mass for Amess, a Catholic, who was stabbed to death at a surgery meeting in his constituency of Southend West on October 15. He is survived by his wife, Julia, one son and four daughters.

EPA

5,000 shopping bags

An arrangement of 5,000 shopping bags is displayed on the Plaine de Plainpalais, part of a campaign called 'By your generosity', launched by the food bank Partage. The installation is aimed at raising awareness of the precarious situation faced by the region's most vulnerable people, in Geneva, Switzerland.

EPA

Giant Egyptian junkyard

Used cars at a junkyard in Helwan, Cairo. An increasing number of vehicles are being either scrapped or recycled in Egypt. In an attempt to lower pollution and improve livelihoods, the Egyptian government will grant licences to new vehicles only if they can operate on a bi-fuel system, a move that will also grant economic gains for the gas-rich country.

AP Photo

Autumn gold

Off school due to the US Thanksgiving holiday this week, Felix Naranch (R), 7, and his brother Asa, 3, play with their father Stu in a pile of fallen leaves that they raked together in a park in Washington.

AFP

The French Spider-Man

French urban climbers Alain Robert (L), popularly known as the "French Spider-Man", and Leo Urban climb the 154-metre Skyper Tower in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.