A couple chats at a park during sunset in Chihuahua November 15, 2014. (Photo by Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

Lightning strikes near Jacobsdorf at the Oder-Spree district in eastern Germany, September 1, 2015. (Photo by Patrick Pleul/AFP Photo)

The Jinshanling Great Wall is seen after a rainfall on March 31, 2022 in Chengde, Hebei Province of China. (Photo by Zhou Wanping/VCG via Getty Images)

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 dragonfly rests on a leaf in Hinojedo, Cantabria, northern Spain, 01 June 2023. (Photo by Pedro Puente Hoyos/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Spain's Oscar Husillos (R) passes the baton to Spain's Eva Santidrian (L) in the mixed 4x400m relay heats during the World Athletics Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon on July 15, 2022. (Photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP Photo)

This undated photo provided by NOAA in May 2018 shows aurora australis near the South Pole Atmospheric Research Observatory in Antarctica. When a hole in the ozone formed over Antarctica, countries around the world in 1987 agreed to phase out several types of ozone-depleting chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Production was banned, emissions fell and the hole shriveled. But according to a study released on Wednesday, May 16, 2018, scientists say since 2013, there’s more of a banned CFC going into the atmosphere. (Photo by Patrick Cullis/NOAA via AP Photo)

People look at buildings displaying a light show on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing on June 30, 2021. (Photo by Noel Celis/AFP Photo)