Italy's Sofia Raffaeli competes in the individual all-around final during the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships at the West Japan General Exhibition Centre in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka prefecture on October 30, 2021. (Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP Photo)

A moon light illuminates the sky through the clouds over a large line of grass between some home houses in the small village of Tafalla, northern Spain, Tuesday, May 1, 2018. (Photo by Alvaro Barrientos/AP Photo)

A woman made up as a skull participates in Day of the Dead festivities in Mexico City, Thursday, October 27, 2016. The holiday honors the dead as friends and families gather in cemeteries to decorate their loved ones' graves and hold vigil through the night on Nov. 1 and 2. (Photo by Marco Ugarte/AP Photo)

Model Georgia Salpa attends the UK Premiere of “A Good Day To Die Hard” at Empire Leicester Square on February 7, 2013 in London, England. (Photo by UK Press)

U.S. Park Police work to keep people away from the area surrounding the Washington Monument after a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck the east coast August 23, 2011 in Washington, DC. Police officers said that unidentified material had fallen off the Washington Monument as a result of the earthquake. All the monuments and buildings along the National Mall have been evacuated and closed. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

British visitors wearing Bavarian costumes walk ahead the opening of the traditional Bavarian Oktoberfest festival at the Theresienwiese in Munich, southern Germany, on September 20, 2014. Germany's world-famous Oktoberfest kicks off with millions of revellers set to soak up the frothy atmosphere in a 16-day extravaganza of lederhosen, oompah music and, of course, beer. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP Photo/DPA)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

A performer dances in the Chinese New Year parade in Sydney on February 17, 2013. The parade featured more than 3,500 performers from Australia and China, including 120 performers from Shenzhen, Sydney's offical partner city for this year's festival. (Photo by William West/AFP Photo)